


Monsters

by kaehdci



Series: Infected [1]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Angst, Disasters, Eventual Romance, F/M, Friendship, London, Plague, Romance, Slow Burn, Survival, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 45,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaehdci/pseuds/kaehdci
Summary: I remember when the fantasy of being stuck with an idol during a global disaster sounded like a thrilling and dangerous romantic adventure. In the movie of my life, I'd be stuck in a building with a beautiful man. Maybe we would fight side by side. I remember when I had the luxury of that fantasy. But when the infection broke out, there was nothing romantic about it. Six days on from the collapse of society, with people who should be dead walking around with blank eyes and bloody mouths, I'm trapped in the London Underground. I guess I got my wish, because the man trapped with me is Chanyeol from EXO. The fantasy, it turns out, is quite different from the reality.
Relationships: Park Chanyeol/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Infected [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143827
Kudos: 3





	1. Day 6

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of creative fiction
> 
> (NOTE: this story runs concurrently with 'Juliet' as part of the same incident, but is standalone)

Do you remember those quizzes from back before the apocalypse, the ones that made you answer a bunch of arbitrary questions? At the end, it told you which member of an idol group you'd marry, or whatever. I remember when the fantasy of being stuck with an idol during a global disaster sounded like a thrilling and dangerous romantic adventure. The reality is... well, it's dangerous, they got that one right. It's Day 6 of the Zombie Apocalypse and I'm stuck in a disused tunnel in the London Underground with Park Chanyeol from EXO. And he is impossible.

The tunnel was quiet today; it was still very early in the morning, so the other survivors who I knew burrowed in down here are probably still asleep. I saw them occasionally, and we would nod solemnly to each other. We didn't talk, though, or get any closer than the width of the rail. The Infection was still far too rampant, the risks way too high to mix our company. Like me, they probably came down here with a handful of people when the street became too dangerous to live on. Maybe, like me, their numbers dwindled as hours and days went on and the infection or the depression picked off their party members one by one. When I climbed onto the platform at Embankment, there was a little swarm of rats clustered around a dark shape on the ground at the other end. It wasn't there yesterday; the Infected sometimes came down this far if the door wasn't blocked - and the door to Embankment station had been torn down by someone - but the darkness usually scared them away. This one had probably lain down and never got back up again. I didn't investigate; the Infected corpse was the rat's business. I dipped my torch and glanced out into the concourse, checking it was clear before I ran for the stairs. Nothing stirred in the darkness, so it was an easy climb up into the station proper, and then I was outside. I quickly covered my sensitive, tunnel-dwellers eyes with the pair of £800 sunglasses I swiped on Day 3 from a boutique in Mayfair.

I had a route in my head to Charing Cross Road. This was just a scouting mission, and I wasn't in a hurry to get back to Chanyeol. He was hardly good company, anyway. I set off at a leisurely pace, keeping a wary eye out for Infected or other survivors. A scan of the streets on my way was enough to tell me that, even as more Infected had died in the night, the ones that were left were starting to cotton on to where people might be hiding. Their behaviour, I had noticed, was changing. Outside the station, there were toppled bins and bits of things I didn't want to think about as part of human bodies but I knew what they were even if my brain didn't want to admit it. The corpse on the platform wouldn't be the only one. If we were going to survive much longer, I was going to have to get Chanyeol out of the service tunnel we were living in, and back to the surface. He wanted to believe that his members were still alive, and I wanted to leave the tunnel. Now that we knew where he had been staying, we should be making for there. That was easier considered than done, though. I was worried about him getting Infected on the way, so I had to scout first. And besides, we hadn't spoken in 12 hours, since I hit him. Plus, he was scared. He didn't go out for food, and even if he wanted to, I didn't trust him to return. Every time I came back to the tunnel, I was surprised to find that he was still there, ready to eat what I'd scavenged and mutter a half-sincere thanks.

I should probably explain what happened, and how I ended up with him.


	2. Day 1

It would be good storytelling to start with what caused the Infected to lose their minds. That might be the kind of detail that someone who knew anything about the sickness that swept the city - the country - probably the world - would start with. I didn't know anything about it, though. I've seen headlines since, on newspapers from the day of the outbreak, talking about a quarantine case at some hospital in north London. After 2020, I was fairly immune to the language of outbreaks, so I ignored it at the time. As far as I can piece together, and based on what the news was saying in the hours before everything stopped updating and then the phones, the radio, and eventually the power grids, went off, a woman became violently ill in that north London hospital the Sunday night before the outbreak.

That Monday, I walked to work. I lived off Edgeware Road and I worked in Marylebone so it wasn't far. So, on that day - the day of the outbreak - I didn't notice that the Tube was shut. I had my earphones in, ironically enough listening to the EXO comeback, so I didn't notice diminished traffic noise. It was Fashion Week, so I was run off my feet at the venue I manage, and I was only thinking about work. When I got there, the designer's show I'd been preparing for was still going ahead. My assistant told me that the government had issued a caution on large gatherings, but the designer's people told me the guest list was small. I didn't protest, and went to my office. That was at 8:15am.

The illness, the sickness - I don't know what to call it but that - transmits from person to person through physical contact. A single touch isn't enough to kill you, but more than a couple of seconds is enough to spread the infection. It only needs skin-to-skin contact, I think. The first thing that happens is that the Infected get really sick. They run a high fever and some people vomit or pass out, but very quickly, within minutes, the infection gets into their brain and they lose their minds. Then, the only thing they seem capable of doing is spreading the infection. It's not like in the films, they don't bite or run really fast. At least, they didn't at the start. In general, they're just sick people, with a highly-infectious disease and no control over their bodies or minds. The infection spreads fast enough that it keeps going from person to person. Some people - a very tiny number - get sick and get better, and seem to be immune then. My assistant wasn't one of those people, and neither were the designer's floor managers, but after they shook my hand and gave me the infection, after I woke up on the floor of my office at 3:30pm with a headache and in desperate need of a change of clothes, I discovered that I was.

The building was quiet when I woke up. I didn't notice at first, but the electricity was off; there was no one maintaining anything to keep it on. I had a change of clothes in my office, so I put them on quickly, cleaning myself up in the bathroom on my floor before anyone saw me, but I need not have worried. Everyone on my floor was Infected by then, and when I went downstairs to find out where everybody was, I saw them, pupils milky with sickness and clothes filthy with vomit and everything else, huddled near a locked door and moaning quietly at each other. I'll never quite understand how I knew to stop on that stairs and turn around, retreating to my office and barricading the door. I did that, though, and when I'd had a minute to take out my phone and scroll through the messages on my phone - all from the morning, nothing after about 11am from anybody - the horror of the situation dawned. The news had stopped updating by then, but I knew enough about the Infected by what was written before it stopped to know that I shouldn't go near the people downstairs. I was terrified, and I didn't move for a little while. I didn't trust my legs to carry me, and there was nothing left in my stomach to calm my dry-heaving. I remembered the door, though, and wondered if maybe - maybe - there were survivors down there. On that first day, survivors were a good thing, not another obstacle to survival.

So, on shaking legs, I picked up the phone on my desk and called the emergency line in the room behind the door. When the building wasn't being used for Fashion Week, it was a staff lounge. Today, it was the Green Room. The deep voice that answered me in good, if stilted English from the other end of the phone was terrified, and very familiar. It was Park Chanyeol.

I knew he was at Fashion Week because he was on every guest list for the venue in the building I managed. He hadn't shown up to any shows yet (I'd been checking), but here he was. On Day One of the End of the World, EXO's Chanyeol was trapped in my staff lounge with four other people: his manager, a make-up artist, and two of the models. None of these people made it as far as the Tube tunnel. On that first day, I was worried that it was going to start getting dark at around seven, so I didn't want to leave the safety of my building just yet. I convinced Chanyeol to take the back door out of the green room into the main exhibition hall. There was a back stairs he could access from there that led up to my office. My office was more secure than the ground floor; there were fewer entrance points and it was off the street-level. There was also a landline. The door had a sturdy lock and I had a water cooler. There was a kitchen down the hall, and as far as I could see, there were no Infected on my floor, at least none who were moving about. I was being a bit selfish, too. I didn't want to move.

Only two of the other people in the staff lounge left with Chanyeol and made the sprint across the exhibition space to the back stairs. His manager was the first one through my door, holding her side and looking around the room wildly. One of the models came next, and behind her, Chanyeol. I knew he was tall - I was EXO-L, after all - and next to the model, he looked normal sized. When he stepped away from her and shut the door behind him, though, I got a sense of his height. He was dressed for the show, in a black trench coat and skinny jeans that only made him look taller, and a expensive, white designer t-shirt that was plastered to him with anxiety sweat. His hair was black, and had fallen out of whatever style he probably had it coiffed in that morning. He was grasping a ridiculously expensive brand of woolen hat and he was clearly terrified.

"Where are the, um, the other people?" I asked. The model just shook her head, and sat down on the floor.

"Who are you?" Chanyeol asked me.

"I manage the building," I said, and told them my name, busying myself straightening papers on my desk. Chanyeol was hard to look at. I see celebrities at events all the time, but never anyone I'm an actual fan of. He was ridiculously good-looking. I looked at his manager instead.

"We can stay here for a while, but there must be somewhere we can go."

They all just looked at me, not saying anything.

"What?"

"Do you know what's happening out there?" the model asked. Her name was Crista; I recognised her from the show.

"I... look, I just woke up. I passed out this morning, I woke up an hour ago, and the news is fucking insane. I don't know what's happening but there must be police or ambulance services or something we can..." I trailed off. I knew I was getting hysterical. Chanyeol and his manager were frowning at me slightly.

"Did you call anyone? Police? Ambulance?" Crista asked. I had. There was no answer from the emergency number. That was terrifying, and I didn't want to say it out loud. I had only called one other person – my oldest friend, Jeremy. He hadn't picked up. I didn't want to think about why that was. I sat down on the floor and the others did the same. 

We stayed in my office that night. Apart from some shuffling noises in the hallway at about 4am, no one bothered us. My phone was silent, and I noticed the others checking theirs occasionally. Nobody slept.


	3. Day 2

The empty streets of London the next day really brought home the horror of what I was living through. Strangely enough, it galvanised me. Something clicked in my brain that made me braver, in spite of my bone-deep fear. That and having to coral the three stragglers I'd picked up. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me nervous being around Chanyeol, in particular. The scant news from before everything stopped told me that there were immunity cases, and cases of recovery after infection. I was rapidly realising that I was one of these cases. I didn't know if that made me completely immune, but I didn't want to find out. All I knew was that I had survived the infection at least once, and this made me feel braver. There were still people around on those first days, survivors making their way home or people who hadn't heard the news somehow. Infected roamed the streets slowly. I saw a man recognise his friend amongst their number and that was the first time I saw someone becoming Infected. The manager disappeared after two hours on that second day; I didn't see where she went. Chanyeol hadn't said much, just stuck close to our group and looked around warily as we moved from street to street. When his manager took off, he didn't seem bothered, just mildly curious at first. As far as I could see, she hadn't consulted him about it. We talked a bit as we walked, mostly about what we were seeing. He didn't seem to struggle to understand me. I didn't have any sense of how good his English was. When he spoke, it was with a light, clipped accent, and a slight lisp to his s's.

The police station near my building was a lost cause. There were Infected everywhere, milling about the street in front. These people had probably come here to get help. I knew better than to look to other emergency services then; hospitals would probably be worse. I found us a pub off Marylebone High Street that was closed during the day, so I knew there were not likely to be any Infected inside from the outbreak yesterday. There, we sat on green velour couches that smelled faintly of beer to make a plan. It was the middle of the day, and we were on private property, but I figured we had already broken in and opened a beer for myself. Chanyeol poured himself a whisky, but Crista wouldn't drink. She was far too nervous, and kept biting at her immaculately gelled nails.

"I want to stay with you," she said to me over and over. She eyed Chanyeol warily as she talked, like she had already dismissed him as an asset and now considered him a hinderance to our progress. She had initially stuck close to him when we left the building - he was tall and broad and famous-looking, after all - but when it became clear that he was neither friendly nor useful in a city he didn't know, she changed her allegiance to me. I wasn't delighted about this. I was beginning to regret asking them to join me in the first place. I didn't have any responsibility to these strangers, except maybe Chanyeol, towards whom I felt a small amount of protectiveness as a fan.

"Do you have anywhere to go?" I asked Chanyeol.

"Where is my manager?" he asked, looking around. I don't think he was talking to me. He kept pulling out his phone, seemingly expecting the result to be different each time. His phone, like mine and Crista's, had died in the night. There didn't seem to be any electricity, still.

"I didn't see where she went," I said. "Do you know where she might be? Did she go to your hotel?"

"Hotel? I don't know. I don't know where my hotel is..." he looked troubled, so I left him alone, and asked Crista if she had anywhere to go. She just shook her head. She didn't live in England, much less London, and had probably been put up in some model's dormitory. So, I decided to go back to my apartment, because at least I knew the layout of that place. When they came with me, I didn't stop them. Neither of them looked fit to be left alone, Crista hugging herself tightly in a slip-dress and Doc Martens like the world's most fashionable waif, and Chanyeol glaring around as if I couldn't see that he was terrified under all that. I was terrified too. We skirted around backstreets and made it to my apartment without incident, but getting in was impossible. The terrace I rented my mezzanine studio in had a staircase at the entrance, and there was a pile of corpses draped all over it. As we approached, one of them moved. I recognised my downstairs neighbour. Infected. Who knew what was going to be inside? I backed away slowly and looked up at my window on the first floor. I knew that it was open an inch or so, stuck like that since I moved in. If I could get to the window, I could open it and climb in. But I was no gymnast, and there was a steep drop into the passage in front of the basement flat under my window.

"Can you climb up there? The window is open if you push it up," I said to Chanyeol. He was a professional dancer, after all. He certainly had more balance than I did. He looked at me like I was insane. "At the window," I said, pointing again to my flat. Just as I was about to turn to Crista, he wordlessly passed me his trench coat and climbed up onto the iron railings outside the building. Bracing himself against the top of the railing, he slowly stood up and leaned out over the drop to the basement and I held my breath.

With his long limbs, he was able to reach up and grab the short railings around my window. For a second he dangled over the gap before he braced himself against the railings and climbed up onto the ledge in front of my window, pushing it open and hopping inside. Once he was in there, I realised that I hadn't the slightest clue what to do next. I had only thought of getting inside.

"We can't stay here," he called down, and I shook my head.

"No, we can't get in the front door and there isn't really any other way... for me, or Crista."

"Can I..." he trailed off, looking around. "Do we need things?" It was a good question. I was racking my brain, trying to remember the contents of my small apartment.

"I'd like a coat, please," Crista said in a small voice. Chanyeol heard her and left the window. I was suddenly acutely aware that he was in my space - my bedroom, my kitchen, my bathroom. I didn't know where we were going or what we were going to do, if we would even survive the next few days, but I knew right there and then that I would rather break into a Primark than ask Chanyeol from EXO to pick me up a few extra pairs of underwear. I tried to remember if I had left anything embarrassing hanging around.

"Chanyeol!" I called, but he didn't respond. "Park Chanyeol!" I called again. He appeared at the window. "There's a backpack in the space under the stairs. Can you pack some dry food and water, and some extra clothes please?" I didn't know if he understood all of that, but he nodded anyway, and a few minutes later, emerged from my window with my backpack over his shoulder, and a couple of jackets which he threw down before performing some baffling feat of acrobatics and landing in a crouch on the path in front of us. I picked up my winter parka, and passed my shearling jacket to Crista. Chanyeol handed me the backpack, and we set off in the direction of Edgeware Road again.

It was Crista's idea to go to the Underground. She reasoned that the Infected were probably not aware of the Tube. I doubted this; I assumed that we would find a station full of corpses, but we had nowhere else to go. What I didn't expect was that the Tube system had shut down entirely the night before the outbreak, a government executive order according to the sign on the iron grille in front of the doorway. It was a stroke of luck that we couldn't have even thought to ask for. We just had to open the grille.

"I found a knife," Chanyeol said, unzipping the backpack on my back and reaching inside. He drew out a Swiss Army knife that had been my dad's before he died, and started fiddling with the lock. When it became apparent that he was no master locksmith, he wordlessly handed the knife back, and started kicking the lock instead. I joined him, but it was no good. There was a cafe next door, so I picked up the sandwich board that was still outside and threw it at the glass door, which shattered. Too late, I remembered that the sandwich board said that the cafe was open, and four pairs of milky eyes were suddenly turned towards us.

One infected was draped over the counter from the inside, and three others sat on the floor in front of it. There was a passage between them and another glass door - probably locked - that led to the station proper. After the initial shock had worn off, I started to work out a route around them. Infected were just that - infected. They were sick people who had lost their minds, and they were an immediate danger, but they were docile. One of them reached a weak arm towards me, but I was well out of his reach. Not stopping to wait for the others I stepped quickly through the room and flipped the deadbolt on the door into the station. Chanyeol was already across the room, while Crista was picking her way through the space more gingerly.

The hand that caught Crista on her bare ankle was small and wrinkled, reaching out from under one of the window-side tables. When it happened, she didn't even scream. I think she was so shocked by it that she forgot that she should be afraid. She looked at us, frozen in the doorway. There was no point in helping; it was already too late. She fainted, which was a mercy. Within minutes, her fever would spike, and then she would be lost. I knew that I should feel guilty for guiding her in here, but I didn't. Nothing about what was happening was under my control. There was one thing I could do, though. I grabbed Chanyeol by the wrist and pulled him through the doorway, shutting it quietly behind me. I was breathing heavily, and so was he. I could barely see him in the gloom; all of the lights in the station were off. I still had my house-keys in my pocket, and there was a tiny torch on the ring, so I pulled it out and illuminated the space. It was empty.

"Let's go," I said. When he didn't move, I said it again in Korean. He looked up and then nodded. When he reached out and took my hand, I tried to forget that it was him, that it was Chanyeol. My terrified partner in surviving the apocalypse, that was all he was. I tried to ignore that I knew that the long middle finger that was currently entwined with mine had a little tattoo of his producer name on the inside, or that the calloused fingertips lightly grazing the back of my hand were like that because I knew he played guitar. I tried to forget every picture I had ever seen of him as EXO Chanyeol. If I was going to survive and keep him alive too, I had to avoid being distracted by... him. I thought about making a quick quip about how I wished he had his flame power to hand, but decided that it was definitely best not to draw attention to the fact that I was a fan. I didn't want him to feel any more uncomfortable than he already was, grasping a strangers hand in the unlit London Underground.

The electrified centre rail was off, which I knew wasn't a good sign. There were occasional noises as we walked along the Circle line, but we didn't run into anyone else that day. We just walked until I felt tired. I didn't have a watch, but Chanyeol had a gold rolex on his wrist with hands that glowed in the dark and he began to check it obsessively now that his phone was out of action. When it was getting on for night time, we climbed up onto the next platform, which turned out to be Embankment. We were by the river, then. It seemed as good a place to stop as any, and I knew the city well. I also knew that we were in one of the oldest parts of the Tube, not too far from the surface. There were old tunnels off these stations, and spaces we could make use of. I was desperately trying to remember a tour of abandoned Tube stations I'd been on for a Hen Party once.

"We can't stay on the platform," I said out loud. My voice croaked. It was the first thing I'd said in a few hours. "I saw a doorway back there, maybe there are other...this is an intersection station. Let's take a look around." He didn't respond to me, but he followed as I hopped off the platform again, and wandered into the tunnel. After a few minutes, I found what I was looking for. It was a grey door with a voltage symbol taped to it, and inside there was a dingy little space and a bunch of boxes of electrical stuff. There was a locked door on the other side, leading - presumably - into the infamous network of service tunnels that ran under London. The space was small, a little smaller than my office had been, but it would have to do. There were electrical boxes on one side, but it was quiet. I walked to the wall opposite the electrical boxes and sat down, heavily. There was a faint light coming from the lights on the electrical boxes; this place probably had its own back-up generator, or they ran on batteries. I wondered how long they would last. Chanyeol looked around the room.

"We're staying here?"

"Yes," I said, and nothing else. I spread my parka on the floor beside me and lay down. I was asleep in minutes, and didn't feel Chanyeol carefully lift the backpack from my shoulders to get to the food.


	4. Day 3

On Day 3, I began to worry about our longer-term survival. We were safe (relatively) for the time being. There were bolts on both doors in and out of the room, and so far, there had been two very polite bathroom incidents that were wordlessly managed through my going to the tunnel, and then him. We had some supplies to spare after twelve hours. I gave Chanyeol props for fast-thinking while he was in my flat; there was a roll of toilet paper in the bag, along with a bag of oranges that had been on my work surface, and the three bottles of water that were in my fridge, along with a bag of Doritos and a packet of biscuits. The food choices were esoteric but then I rarely ate at home, so this was probably the best he could find. We couldn't live on this, though. The water was already half-gone. On the morning of the third day since the outbreak, our second in the tunnel, I unpacked all of the supplies and made some quick calculations on what we would need to get by for longer down here. I was curious about what was going on above, but I was inclined to be cautions; the situation was not going to get better soon. I was about to ask Chanyeol if he wanted to go, or if he minded if I went, when he spoke up suddenly from the darkness.

"You know me." I was using the torch so the shape of him was illuminated only dimly by the red lights on the electricity supply box.

"Pardon?" I was confused. What was he talking about?

"You didn't ask for my name when we met. But you know my name. And I saw my album in your house."

I blinked into the darkness. Album... oh. Oh. I had forgotten about that, and I felt myself beginning to blush. There was a copy of Obsession on my shelf. Not just there but set between the books so the cover showed. Of course he saw it. My flat was only a single room. And I suddenly realised that he was right: I hadn't asked his name.

"I..." I had no recourse. There was nothing I could say. Before, I was worried that he would be uncomfortable knowing that I was a fan. It wasn't like he was my bias or anything but him knowing I liked EXO enough to buy and display one of their albums suddenly made me want to crawl into my backpack and die. Then-

"Are you EXO-L?" he asked, and I could tell he was smiling. For some reason, that grated on me. It helped that I couldn't see him, or that he couldn't see me. I could still feel my face getting hot but it was less from embarrassment now than anger. It was the end of the fucking world, and he was making fun of me for liking his group?

"I should go find some food, or a better torch," I said, standing up. He didn't move. "I'm going outside." There was no response, and I didn't see him move. "Are you coming?" Please say no, please say no; I couldn't face seeing his ridiculously perfect face right now, smirking at me.

"No, I'll stay here," he said finally. He still sounded smug.

Before he could change his mind, I emptied my backpack onto the floor and slung it back over my shoulder, before walking out.


	5. Days 4-5

This was the way of things for the next two days. I walked through the deserted city, skirting dwindling numbers of Infected. They were dying of dehydration, mostly. I avoided them, and I didn't look too hard at the groups that I came across; I didn't want to see anyone I recognized. I only knew one person who had been in the city on the day of the outbreak, and if I saw Jeremy amongst the Infected, I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from going to him. It became obvious, though, that the age profile of the Infected I saw moving around was becoming ever more specific as the days went on. I started to notice the little groups moving with more purpose, but as I said, I didn't look too hard. I just walked quickly from place to place and picked up things we needed. I broke into a camping supply shop and took a couple of sleeping bags and dried food. I found a better backpack and a couple changes of clothing. There was one upside to having no law and order, though: if I found an expensive shop that I could never afford with its door open and no Infected inside, I helped myself. My wardrobe was getting more stylish even as my personal hygiene was on the decline.

On the evening of Day 5, four days after we installed ourselves in the tunnel, I decided that we needed to find a better place to hole up. I was seeing survivors on the streets and I'd passed two in the tunnels already. In a world with no police and nothing to lose, living people were just as scary as Infected. That evening, I sat on the floor with the camping stove and a notebook I snagged from a bookshop. I tried to work out what we were going to do. Chanyeol came over to sit next to me, watching me make lists. Lists of supplies, of places we could hole up, of places that might have survivors still.

I could feel him looking at me as I wrote. I knew I looked terrible. My hair tangled into a knot at the back of my head. I was washing when I was out, at least. Plumbing was still working, and there was no shortage of sinks in the cafes around us. He hadn't washed properly since before the outbreak. His hair was an unruly mess, still thick with whatever styling product he had put in it on Day 1. There was stubble on his chin, and he smelled like the baby wipes I brought back. It was definitely the proximity and not my latent fangirl that made him still look so good. His avid attention was enough to distract me utterly from what I was doing. Luckily, distracting me was what he had in mind.

"What are you writing?" he asked.

"Lists. I'm trying to make a plan. We can't stay here."

"Why?"

"You'll get sick. You haven't been outside in days. You're starting to look ill." It was true, and it was concerning. I couldn't see him clearly in the half-light from the stove, but even I could tell that he looked pallid. I let him eat all of the oranges, but they were gone now. I was also getting impatient by his inertia. It wasn't that I wanted him to come with me when I went looking for supplies. I was still worried about him getting sick. It was concerning, though, that he was so listless all the time. This was the most interested he had been in anything since we got here.

"Where can we go?"

"I don't know," I said, turning back to the notebook. It was just a list of hotels in the city that I knew of. "Do you... I mean, you're famous. People must be looking for you." I looked across at him, but he just shrugged.

"Is anyone looking for you?" he asked. "Boyfriend? Mother?"

I shook my head, but then thought seriously about it. "My best friend, if he's alive. I don't know, though. He didn't call me on the day of the outbreak. I tried to call his office before we left the building, but he didn't answer." Jeremy was a scientist. He worked in one of the universities in Bloomsbury and he basically lived in his office on a good day. We had been friends since school, kept in touch through his long stint at different universities and my spectacular crash out of one in the second year. He was the only person who had known every person I was through my life. I didn't want to think about why he might not have called me.

Chanyeol was looking into the flame on the stove. I had been thinking about my own situation, so I hadn't noticed that he looked worried. I frowned, something occurring to me that really should have been obvious from the start.

"Chanyeol, who came to the UK with you? Just your manager?"

He bit his lip and shrugged again, but... oh my god, was he crying? I had no idea what to do so I sat and waited for him to pull himself together. I knew what his tears looked like from concert footage, but this was a bit different. He was really trying to control himself. These weren't happy tears. These were the tears behind his days of ennui. Eventually, he cleared his throat and spoke.

"Some of my members are in the hotel but I couldn't call. My phone won't work."

His members... the rest of EXO? It was inappropriate – I knew it was inappropriate – but my heart started to race, in spite of the situation. Here I was, in the middle of a major probably-global disaster trapped underground with a crying man concerned for his friends, and I was fangirl-ing. Then, I realized that they were probably dead. I couldn't stop myself, I asked-

"Who?"

"Sehunnie. Jonginah. Some staffs. Three of our managers."

Sehun and Kai. God, I really hope they're not dead, I thought. I had thought that about pretty much everyone I had ever met in my life over the last four days, but I genuinely meant it. I cared about Jeremy, but I couldn't raise my own mother on the phone on a perfect Sunday afternoon so she was the last person I really thought about now. Since Dad died, we had grown too far apart. I didn't have many other friends. And, in that moment, I cared more about getting Chanyeol to stop crying than I did about most people I actually knew in real life, so I told him his members were probably safe even though they probably weren't. A plan started to come together in my head.

"What did your hotel look like?" I should have asked this on Day 1. He hadn't been any help at the time, though, and it didn't occur to me to interrogate him when he was clearly going through it. Now, though... now there was a purpose.

He shrugged. That was discouraging. "It's Big, red... I don't know."

"Did it look like anything? A house or a castle, or-"

"Harry Potter," he said. "It looked like Harry Potter."

I rolled my eyes and hoped he didn't see. Everything in London looked like Harry Potter. I tried a different tack.

"What did the room look like?" I asked. London had some fancy hotels, but some were fancier than others, and some had phenomenal views. Others looked down onto busy streets.

"Harry Potter," he said, again. "There was a flying car. And trains."

What was he- it suddenly occurred to me. He's talking about St Pancras Station! Of course! It was in all the films! There was a hotel there too, and an apartment complex that design websites went mad about a couple of years ago.

"Was it a hotel, or an apartment?" I asked. He looked confused. I said it again in Korean.

"Oh. Apartment. There was no room service. Our staffs brought us food." he said. Then, "You speak Korean."

"No," I said quickly. "Sort of. Some, a little. Tourist stuff."

I wrote 'St Pancras' on my notebook and refused to look at him because I could tell that he was smirking at me again.

"It's getting late," I said when he didn't say anything else. "We should go to sleep. I need to scout out the area tomorrow if we're going to walk up to St Pancras. It should only take an hour. Maybe a little more."

Chanyeol didn't move.

"You like many idol groups?" he asked, and I felt face grow hot.

"I like k-pop, yes, now please drop it."

He laughed, the first time he had done so since I met him. The noise was so warm, so pleasant, that I started, staring at him. He took advantage of my surprise and leaned forward, ruffling my hair. He called me cute in Korean and I thought about hitting him, but instead I just said I had to pee and left, cooling my warming face in the draft in the dark tunnel. When I came back in, he was in his sleeping bag, rifling through my notebook. I took off my shoes and climbed into my own bag, snatching the notebook from him and turning out the stove before he could protest.

In the darkness, I felt him move closer to me. We were sleeping side-by-side the past few nights anyway, because it was cold down in the tunnel. It had been a bit nerve-wrecking the first time, listening to his breathing deepen just inches from me on the floor. Tonight, though, I felt him prop himself up on his elbow. He reached out and ran his long fingers across my jaw, turning my face towards him. I forgot to breathe. His thumb grazed my chin, and I could feel how close he was. I could almost see him, outlined in the dim red glow of the little electricity box lights. What was he going to do? Had he finally lost his mind? I guessed I really was the last girl on earth, as far as he was concerned, but I found in that moment that I didn't actually care. I wondered what it would feel like to kiss him with that stubble. Or kiss him at all. I dimly recalled that I hadn't brushed my teeth in days. My hands in the sleeping bag were trembling.

"Tell me...who is your favourite in EXO?" he asked in a low growl, and I realised he was making fun of me. It was like a bucket of cold water. My hands were no longer trembling, but they were still trapped, so I used my knee and hit him where it would hurt. He let loose a string of curses in strained Korean, and I turned away from him, not bothering to say goodnight.


	6. Day 6

When I was satisfied that the area between Embankment and Tottenham Court Road was clear, I made my way back to the tunnel. We hadn't spoken that morning before I left, but Chanyeol knew we were leaving. I hoped that he was ready to go. A tiny part of me was worried that he wouldn't be there when I got back, that I had gone too far by kneeing him in the balls. But I had that same fear every time I left the tunnel. We barely spoke to each other, and last night he was infuriating when he did talk, but he was the only person I... knew.

As I backtracked to the station, I saw a group of Infected wandering about under the bridge nearby. They were one of the groups I'd noticed earlier, moving with more purpose than the big swarms of Infected I'd seen when walking through the streets on the first two days. They were gathered around something, and curiosity got the better of me. I knew it was dangerous, but this was the first time I'd seen Infected actually doing something, other than wander sightlessly. As I inched closer to them, the shape on the ground resolved itself in the gloom. It was a dog. I backed away quickly and ran for the station.

When I got back to the electricity room, Chanyeol was pacing the room in the dim glow of one of the camping lights. He had clearly psyched himself up and was ready to leave.

"Can we go?" he asked, as soon as I entered. My heart was hammering. I didn't know how to explain this to him. I hoped he understood enough English to get it. He hadn't had any trouble with what I'd told him so far. While I was looking for the words, he clearly noticed my panic because he stopped pacing and put his hand on my shoulder, stilling me.

"Are you okay?" he asked, then asked again in Korean when I didn't answer him. I nodded after a moment.

"Things have changed," I said, looking around for the thing I'd picked up in one of the shops on Carnaby Row on Day 3. I found the baseball bat leaning against the wall. I'd brought it back for Chanyeol, along with a ball. I was hoping he would use it to kill time, and he'd been tossing the ball against the wall and hitting it for hours since. I walked over and picked up the bat, testing its weight.

"I saw a group of Infected outside. They... oh God, I think I'm going to be sick-" I leaned over, and retched. Chanyeol patted my back, and when I didn't vomit, he guided me onto the floor and handed me a bottle of water. I drank deep, while he crouched in front of me looking concerned. He didn't look scared and for the first time, that wasn't good. He needed to be scared. I was terrified.

"The Infected were eating a dog," I said quickly. I watched his face to see if he understood, then said 'eating', 'dog', and 'sick people' a few times in Korean to make sure. "They haven't done that before. I... they were tearing it apart, it was... they were-" I drank from the bottle again. I was shaking. This was bad. If the Infected who weren't dying of dehydration were finding ways to sustain themselves - violent ways - then how long before they started to act like- no. I didn't want to think about the Z word. I'd been avoiding that since Day 1. When I felt like I could stand, I leaned on the baseball bat and climbed to my feet.

"We should move now. Are you ready?"

He nodded and picked up the backpack I'd scavenged for him from the corner and slung it over his shoulder. I saw that he'd packed what food we had left. I grabbed my bag and made for the door, baseball bat in hand. I was still clinging to the hope that things weren't as bad as I thought. That dog had still been alive when I saw them, though. They had caught it and ripped it to pieces in front of me. I shoved the thought aside and led Chanyeol out of the tunnel. When we got to the platform, I took his wrist and led him away from where more rats had gathered around the Infected corpse. I was acutely aware that he hadn't been exposed since we came down here and kicked myself for not getting him a pair of gloves. I did remember one thing, though. As we climbed the stairs to the station, I reached into the backpack, fished out a pair of sunglasses and handed them back to him.

"Put these on or your eyes will hurt." He took them out of the case. They were Wayfarers, expensive ones (not that I paid), and when he didn't say anything, I assumed he wasn't disgusted by them. I wasn't really presuming his taste, anyway. I'd seen him in a similar pair in pictures. Obviously, I didn't tell him that.

When we reached the street, the group of Infected were still under the bridge. I glanced at them and tightened my grip around the baseball bat. Chanyeol staggered slightly in the light, and I gave him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust before I set off. He took my free hand and held it like he was afraid I might leave him, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little thrill at being needed, in spite of the nightmare situation we were in.

I was still a bit embarrassed about what had happened last night. Not for kneeing him in the balls; he deserved that. I was more embarrassed by what he thought about me. He knew I was a fan... I suppose I should be grateful that he was amused by this rather than uncomfortable. Maybe it suited him better to be known without having to explain himself. Still, he didn't need to tease me about finding him attractive. The entire back catalogue of EXO concert footage screamed 'sexy', and it wasn't my fault if I was affected by that. I tried not to think about EXO concerts as we walked quickly through the deserted streets, his hand wrapped around mine.

There was another huddle of Infected at Trafalgar Square, larger than the one by Embankment. Now that I knew what I was looking at, I noticed the bloodstains on their clothes that were fresher than a few days old, and the rust-coloured stains around their mouths. The ones that hadn't died had found a way to survive, even as their minds had gone. Chanyeol kept his gaze on the ground, avoiding anything that looked vaguely human or human-associated that we came across. We walked straight up the middle of Charring Cross Road. As we passed a large supermarket near the theatres, I spotted a few survivors scavenging about inside. Chanyeol's hand tightened around mine, so I knew he'd seen them too. I held the baseball bat tighter and we walked faster, but no one called out to us. Though we kept our pace steady, I felt like running. I knew we were being watched, and made a snap decision to get off this road when we got to the Palace Theatre. As we turned up Shaftesbury Avenue, I let out a breath I hadn't realised I'd been holding and gulped in fresh lungfuls.

Mindless Infected I could handle, but I was becoming increasingly aware of the complete breakdown in society that had happened around us... and with it, any semblance of law and order. I had engaged in that myself, as the stolen pair of limited edition skate shoes on my feet and the food in my backpack was testament to. Desperate people did desperate things. I suddenly wished I had picked up another weapon for Chanyeol. He must have been thinking the same thing, because he stopped next to a shop we passed a few minutes later and ducked inside after breaking through the glass door with a traffic cone. A locked shop meant there wasn't likely to be any Infected inside, so I didn't follow him, but he didn't go far. I saw him reach into the window and grasp a replica of Aragorn's sword from The Lord of the Rings. I looked up at the sign; it was a comic book store. When he came out wielding the sword, I burst into a fit of giggles.

"What?" he asked, though wry amusement lifted his lips a fraction so he know it looked over-the-top.

"No," I tried to say, it's nothing, mumbling through my laughter. But it was something. Standing there, with his scraggly, unwashed hair and unshaven chin, testing the grip on a massive longsword that nevertheless suited his height... he looked like he'd just walked off a photoshoot. In fact, I think there was a photoshoot of him somewhere, holding a sword that might have been on fire. I couldn't stop laughing, and I couldn't explain it. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and it fell artfully back over his forehead and I laughed even harder.

"What?" he asked again, more defensively this time. "Are you okay?"

"No, no, I'm okay," I replied to him in Korean. I was afraid that if I spoke English I might tell him exactly what I was thinking: that he looked like a model, cosplaying a hero, in a movie-version of this entire moment. After watching me a moment with a confused expression, he just shrugged and took my hand again, dragging me in the general direction of St Pancras Station.

"Let's go," he said in Korean, and I let him lead while I calmed myself down. When we got to the next intersection, I chose the widest route north and headed that way. We were best off if we could see danger coming.

"How long- no, since when- did you learn Korean?" he asked, after a while.

"About two years," I said. "I only did a few night classes, so my Korean isn't very good."

"For-eh-why did you learn Korean?"

"Why?"

"Yes."

I shrugged. The glib answer was that I liked k-pop. There were a few other answers, related to my long-standing lack of a marital status and having relatively little else to do, but I didn't want to go into that. Instead, I told him a half-truth: that I was learning it to go to Korea. I had started learning long before deciding to go, but he didn't need to know that.

"When do you go to Korea?"

"Never. Not now. I had a trip planned for January, to celebrate my 30th birthday," I said. This was true. I realized now that all of the plans I had ever made wouldn't matter anymore. This was sobering and it was enough for me to momentarily forget that I was walking hand-in-hand through London at 3pm on a Saturday with a world-famous musician wielding a sword. Though the situation was fantastical, the prospect of a life without plans seemed like a terrifying and dull probable future in that moment.

I was surprised when I noticed that he was chuckling to himself.

"What?" I asked.

"You're older than me," he said, mischievously, "noona." He tittered to himself and I felt like hitting him with the baseball bat.

"Oh fuck off," I muttered, but I smiled anyway. At least he didn't look scared anymore.


	7. Day 6, Bloomsbury

We ran into trouble in Bloomsbury. I was distracted because I knew we were near where Jeremy worked. I was trying to remember what building he brought me into that one time I visited him at work. It was no use, though. I couldn't remember, and I wasn't sure I wanted to. What if I found him? Seeing my oldest friend with milky eyes and no idea of who I was might be the thing to break through the numbness that had overtaken my sense of horror.

As we drew near Russell Square, we started to hear occasional popping sounds that echoed through the streets ahead of us. It took me a couple of seconds to realize what they were, and by then we were almost at the square.

"A gun?" Chanyeol asked, and I nodded. It was the only explanation. I couldn't tell exactly where the shots were coming from, so there was no way to skirt around the area. I did also entertain the hope that some element of the police or the army had survived the infection. We continued, very slowly, and by the time we got to the square head, it was clear that the shots were coming from one of the buildings. I heard shouts, signals that didn't sound like the authoritative barks of someone in a uniform. I pulled Chanyeol behind a phone box. I knew I'd been right to worry about other survivors.

"We might get shot if we go out there," I said, and he nodded. I was trying to think of a route that would take us off the street we were on. It would be a detour, but we were near St Pancras Station now. Suddenly a shout rang out across the square.

"We saw you coming!" a woman's voice echoed around the buildings. "If you're not sick, you can pass through." I glanced at Chanyeol; he looked confused.

"They said we can come out," I explained.

"Oh."

I shucked off my parka and draped it over the end of the baseball bat. I don't know why I did it, it just seemed like something someone would do in a film. And life was starting to look like one of those. When we reached the corner, I reached out, shaking the parka slightly on the bat. When no one shot it, I decided that they were probably not going to shoot us, or they wouldn't have called. Why would they shoot us, anyway? I pulled the bat back and shucked on my parka before stepping out into the street. Chanyeol was close behind me and he slipped his hand into mine as soon as it was through the sleeve. I squeezed his hand in what I hoped was a reassuring way and not in a way that suggested that I was terrified and I wanted to hold on to something solid.

I raised the baseball bat as we stepped out into the square.

"We're not Infected," I called, rather unnecessarily. An Infected wouldn't call out anyway.

A woman - no, a girl – walked over from one of the gates into the square. She raised a hand and signaled something to someone in one of the buildings around us. I couldn't see anybody else, though. She approached us slowly.

"Where did you come from?" she asked. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. I realized that she was probably one of the students from the universities around here. She looked young but her expression was weary; I wondered how long it had been since she slept properly.

"We were in the Underground," I said. "We just walked up from the river. We're just passing through." I wanted her to know that we weren't staying; that seemed important, like not talking to the other survivors in the tunnel. Too many people had seen their friends Infected around them and I presumed that, like me, no one had any interest in swelling their numbers yet. Maybe things would change as more Infected died. I decided to tell her about what we had seen.

"Some of the Infected down there are eating... things. They're not dying, if that's what you're waiting for. They're not violent yet-"

"The ones up here are," the girl interrupted. "We've been shooting them on sight. Yesterday, a bunch of them tore up my- a man, one of the men here." My men. She's still a nearly a child, I thought. She gestured towards my baseball bat. "I'd get yourself a ranged weapon, if you can." She didn't elaborate on how her shooter had got hold of a gun, but there was no shortage of police corpses in the city, I supposed. I made a mental note to check one of them for a gun if I came across one. She glanced behind me at Chanyeol, stared for a couple of seconds, and nodded. He nodded in return.

"We'll be going, then," I said, and made to move forward.

"Where are you going?"

"Up to Euston Road. There's... we need to check if some people survived," I said. The girl raised her eyebrows; she knew as well as I do that it was more than likely that the people who we were looking for were dead. After a moment, she stood back to let us pass.

"There's been a few people through here in the last couple of days," she said, before we had moved. "It might be safer-" she looked past me, at Chanyeol, and then shook her head. "Some people are talking about a gathering point up that way, near Regent's Park or the cricket ground I think." She was still glancing furtively at Chanyeol as she spoke. I nodded my thanks and let Chanyeol take the lead. He seemed in a hurry, so I let him drag me to the edge of the square, where I took over since he didn't know where he was going.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He looked uncomfortable. More so than was normal in these circumstances, anyway.

"EXO-L," he said. I frowned, then glanced back.

"The girl back there? How did you know?"

"She knew me," he said. "And she had a..." he gestured to his lapel.

"A pin?" I hadn't noticed. I hadn't really looked past her face, though. Chanyeol had years of experience identifying situations in which he was talking to fans; he'd had me pegged from the start. I was confused, though.

"If she was a fan, why didn't you talk to her?"

He shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't have anything to say. I don't want to disappoint anyone."

That surprised me. It wasn't kindness, exactly, or cruelty to ignore the fan either. It was the result of heaped expectation from years of being a role model... he didn't want anyone who admired him to think less of him. I felt a surge of affection for Chanyeol that cut through everything else we had been through the last few days. He oscillated between distant and over-familiar; he was infuriating and insightful at the same time. But he didn't take anything for granted. I didn't think he took me, or what I was doing for us, for granted, either.

Euston Road was deserted, which really brought home to me how bizarre the world had become. I had never seen Euston Road without cars or people or both. There were some scattered corpses, bloating up after being left for days. We avoided even looking at those. We kept close to the buildings as we walked, but not too close in case there were Infected. The relatively short distance to St Pancras station felt like miles to me, and when we got there, I was sorry it hadn't taken longer. The tube station may have closed before the outbreak hit, but the train station must have been open because there were ... it must have been hundreds of Infected in front of St Pancras and Kings Cross. There were more bodies too, all over the place. There was a smell hanging over the whole area and I tried not to breathe in through my nose. The Infected that were moving around were congregating in groups, casting about but not moving too much. I suddenly felt very exposed. I slowed to a stop.

"That's the hotel," said Chanyeol.

"I know. We... look, I don't know this building. Do you know how to get into the apartment you were staying in?" I didn't want to risk getting caught in the fenced-in area directly in front of the hotel. Chanyeol scanned the front of the building.

"The door was beside the hotel door," he said, motioning towards the forecourt in front of the main building. This wasn't ideal. We were in danger of getting hemmed in in that forecourt if it took too long to get the door open. I hefted my baseball bat.

"Get your sword out. They won't attack us but just in case..." I didn't finish and took off down the street at speed.

As we got closer to the station, the Infected started to notice. Slowly at first, they began to drift in our direction. I started to run, hoping to cover the distance before any of them could pick up speed. We made it to the corner and turned into the forecourt, and there I realized my error. The Infected who had been moving towards us had attracted the attention of the Infected in front of the hotel. And there were dozens of them between us and the building.

"Chanyeol, run to the door," I shouted.

"You-"

"I don't know where we're going! Run to the door!" I shouted again, and he sprinted away, skirting around the edge of Infected groups. A few made to grab for him, and my heart was pounding in my chest. As I passed, I swatted at their outstretched arms with my bat, and pushed them back. They were getting more restless; these ones were already moving with more desperation than the ones down by the river.

When Chanyeol reached the door, I called to him and threw my bat, hoping he knew that I meant he should use it to break the glass in the door. He caught the bat easily and hit the glass, shattering it. He got to work on trying to open the door from the inside, gave up and started hitting the lock with the bat. He was panicking and that was dangerous. I was now left without a weapon, but I was right behind him, and picked up his discarded sword. There was a little stair between the door and the concourse, so I stood at the bottom of the stairs and hefted the sword. It was heavier than I realized. I swung the sword in an arc around us.

"Hurry!" I shouted. One of my swings connected with a wrist and blood sprayed out to our left. I realized the danger I was putting Chanyeol in. I wasn't even 100% sure that I was immune yet. Thankfully, the next whack Chanyeol aimed at the lock shattered it, causing the door to swing inwards.

"Let's go!" he shouted in Korean, and I backed into the doorway. I didn't reckon on the width of the sword, because it caught in the doorframe and, as I fumbled to straighten it and drag it inside with me, one of the Infected reached in from the right and grasped my bare wrist. I barely registered the clammy hand connecting with my skin before I had shaken it off, and stepped back, slamming the door behind me and diving out of the way of the shattered window, and grabbed a chair that was sitting near the doorway to wedge the door shut. None of the Infected seemed to be able to work out that the door had a hole in it, though, and we were safe for the time being.

Chanyeol stared at me, shocked.

"That was close," I muttered to myself, then stood. "Where's the stairs?"

He was still staring at me, a look of horror and fear transforming his lovely features into something monstrous. Then, he turned and ran.

I suddenly realized what he saw - the Infected, grasping my wrist, my bare skin. He thought I was sick, and even though we had spent nearly a week together, I hadn't actually talked to him about the infection, or how I had already caught it. I wasn't sure he knew about the immunity thing. But if he ran off now, I would have to go looking for him. I had no idea how big this place was. And if he ran into that apartment and saw his friends were dead... well, it would be an understatement to say that I was worried for him. Those days in the tunnel had sapped his energy, and he might hurt himself if he thought hope was lost. So, I ran after him.

I didn't have time to take in how impressive this building really was, as I hurtled up a well-maintained marble staircase after Chanyeol, still holding the sword. I kept calling out to him, but he didn't turn around. When I reached the top of the stairs, panting, he was hammering on a door. I stayed back, keeping my distance. He looked terrified and he still had that baseball bat.

"Chanyeol, it's fine," I said, over and over, in English and Korean. When that didn't work, and he continued to pound on the door, I decided to explain. "I was sick already, I think I'm immune, look I'm fine. It's been a few minutes. I'm fine." But he didn't seem hear me. At that moment, the door swung inwards, and Chanyeol jumped back. Framed in the doorway, backlit beautifully by the apartment inside, was Kim Jongin - Kai, from EXO. I had never seen anyone look so happy.


	8. Day 6, St Pancras

Kai threw himself at Chanyeol, knocking them both off balance and into the wall.

"Hyungie!" I heard, and that was all I understood, because Kai started talking very fast and at length. With his deep voice and the level of excitement, I doubted he was more intelligible to Chanyeol. Chanyeol embraced him and then stood back, holding onto his shoulder and looking him over like he hadn't expected him to actually be alive and he was making sure he was really intact. For a moment, he forgot about me. Then I moved towards them, and Chanyeol pushed Kai into the doorway behind him.

"Chanyeol, it's fine. I think I'm immune. I was sick already. I'm not sick," I said, then said "I'm not sick" again in Korean. Kai peered around him.

"Hello," he said in his lightly accented English. "I'm Jongin. Who are you?" He grinned at me and I grinned back because it was impossible not to. He was ridiculously attractive in real life; his hair dyed an ashy brown and styled into a kind of long undercut.

"I'm not sick," I said to him, in lieu of my name, or any explanation as to who I was. Before Chanyeol could damn me, I needed Kai to know that I wasn't a danger to him. I didn't expect Chanyeol to charge forward then, bat raised in front of him.

"Go," he said, forcefully. "Before you get sick. I don't want to kill you."

"Please, it's fine, I'm not sick!" I said this again in Korean. The tip of the baseball bat was pressed against my sternum now.

"Hyung-" Kai moved forward but Chanyeol held an arm out, stalling him.

"Go," Chanyeol said to me. "Don't test me."

It was a song lyric. I recognized it immediately from one of his raps, and I couldn't help myself. He'd even lisped the 's' like he did in the recording. I choked on a laugh, and he frowned, confused. He must know it was a song lyric; it was his line. When I had calmed down, I held my hands out, dropping the sword beside me.

"I'm not sick," I said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "I would have collapsed already. It's been nearly five minutes." He was frowning at me, confused. I thought he looked like he might believe me for a second, and I made to step forward. It was a mistake because the bat was rigid, and he was spooked, so he held it firm and I lost my footing and toppled backwards.

I would have fallen down at least one flight of that switchback stairs, probably hurt myself badly or worse, if Kai hadn't suddenly broken through Chanyeol's weak attempts to hold him back and lunged for me. He caught my arm just before my foot left the top step and dragged me back to a standing position.

"Okay?" he asked, in English. I responded in Korean and he beamed at me again.

Chanyeol gaped at him and then unleashed a string of angry Korean, none of which I caught, except for the word 'fool'. Kai took it all without responding and without letting go of my wrist. He pulled me towards the apartment, which Chanyeol was now backing away from.

"Let's go inside," said Kai, and I nodded. He led me into a huge square room with a high ceiling and at least two other floors above and below, and set me onto a couch in the centre of the room. I was very aware of the fact that I hadn't had a shower in a week. I must look like shit, while he was standing there looking like he walked off a runway. Was there running water in this apartment?

Chanyeol followed us in, keeping a wary distance. He asked Kai what was going on, eyes darting between the two of us. Kai put his hand on my shoulder.

"You're safe? Not sick? But you were touched?"

"Yes..." I realized suddenly that he wasn't frightened. Chanyeol had told him I was Infected, and he didn't care. Why didn't he care? Kai turned to Chanyeol.

"It's fine," he said. And then he started explaining something in rapid Korean. I heard him say 'Sehunie' a lot. I glanced around, but there was nobody else in the apartment who I could see. Looking around at the plush, clean furnishings in the room, I suddenly felt desperately tired. I sat back against the cushions and closed my eyes.

"Hey!" Chanyeol shouted. "Are you okay?"

My eyes snapped open. He was standing over me, glaring down suspiciously.

"I'm fine. Where's Sehun?" I said in Korean. Kai looked delighted and started talking to me, but Chanyeol waved him off.

"She only speaks a little Korean," he said, which (ironically) I did understand. Then he turned back to me. "You're not sick? Really?"

I shook my head. "I was sick on the first day. I passed out, and when I woke up, I was okay. I think... some people get it and don't become Infected. I read it on a news site before everything..."

"Yeah, this is true," said Kai. He crouched down next to me and took my wrist, feeling for my pulse. I had no idea what he was doing or pretending to do, but my head spun for a second having Kai from EXO gently hold my wrist in his hand.

"What are you doing?" Chanyeol muttered, driving his knee into Kai's shoulder. Kai staggered back but grinned up at both of us from where he was sprawled on the carpet. He looked delighted to have people to talk to.

"Where's Sehun?" I asked again, and Kai's expression grew more serious.

"He left. Three, no, four days ago, he left with one of the managers." Chanyeol sat down on the other end of the sofa, as far away from me as he could get, in case I suddenly turned Infected.

"Where did he go?" I asked Kai, but he just shrugged. Then he sat up and looked at me closely.

"Sehunie was sick too, but then he woke up. He looked like he was dead," Kai's voice cracked but he recovered quickly. "Manger- Eunbin-noona - was sick too, and Sungjin-hyung locked me in my room." I gathered that Sungjin was another one of their managers. "He opened the door to the roof," Kai pointed to one of the windows; I could see a very narrow balcony out there. "Manager-noona went out, but Sehunie woke up. Later. He said he was fine." Kai took my hand again. "We could touch him, and no one was sick." Kai looked across at Chanyeol, hopefully. Chanyeol was eyeing him and me skeptically. After some hesitation, though, he scooted along the couch towards me and put his arm around my shoulders, turning my head towards him.

"You're okay?" he asked quietly, like Kai couldn't hear him. He even asked in Korean. I nodded and gave him a small smile, and Chanyeol let out a shaky breath, drawing me to him. I let him hold me for a second before I remembered that he had tried to throw me down a stair. I stood up abruptly, suddenly furious.

"You tried to kill me!" I said. I knew why he did it - I even understood it - but I was still outraged. I could have seriously hurt myself, if Kai hadn't caught me in time. Instead of looking sorry, Chanyeol just shrugged.

"I thought you were sick," he said. "I'm happy that you're not sick."

I think he meant to calm me down with that, but it sounded so glib that I suddenly wished we were back in the tunnel so I could storm out to the surface.

"Kai, where's the bathroom? Is there a bed I can use?"

Kai stood up quickly, gald to be helpful, and pointed towards the stairs that wound up through the rest of the apartment. I could see a mezzanine level from where I was standing. "There's a bed at the top," he said, "and a bathroom." I nodded to him in thanks and took off up the stairs. Before I was out of earshot, I heard Kai ask Chanyeol something that sounded like "Is she EXO-L?"


	9. Day 6, the apartment

The apartment they were staying in was luxurious. It was three floors in total, with a kitchen and some bedrooms on the bottom floor, a lounge on the first floor where the main door was, and a mezzanine with a bed at the top with an ensuite, which I claimed. I assumed that I was taking Sehun's bed. At first, I worried that he might come back and find me in it and be confused, but as soon as my freshly-showered head hit the soft sheets, a part of me didn't want him to come back, ever. The ensuite was well-stocked with towels, and the taps probably ran off a tank that had nothing to do with the electrics. The water was cold but it was running water, and I stood under the stream for as long as I could stand it, then collapsed into the bed wrapped in one of the fluffy white robes that was hanging behind the door.

When I woke up, it was dark outside the skylights over the bed. Two floors below, I could hear Kai and Chanyeol talking in Korean. I lay listening to them for a few minutes. I felt an inexplicable sense of loss... the end of a partnership between Chanyeol and I. Kai felt like an intruder, shattering our companionship. Chanyeol and Kai were long-time friends, brothers almost, and I was just some random EXO-L who happened to have been in the building with him when disaster struck. I wondered what this was going to mean going forward. Should I leave? After a few minutes, the soft clank of pots on a stove drove me out of my malaise. I was suddenly very hungry.

I dug some fresh clothes out of my bag. I had to go deep for a pair of jeans I had just stolen and a clean sweater that hadn't been soiled by the tunnel. Climbing down the stairs to the bottom floor, I smelled frying onions and heard water boiling. There was a huge kitchen island in the middle of the bottom floor of the apartment, and the place was lit by candles on the work surface. Kai was lounging on one of the stools, watching Chanyeol cook on the other side on a camping stove like the one in my bag, but much bigger. I realized that it was a barbecue grill like the ones in Korean restaurants. Chanyeol had showered and changed into some ripped jeans and a grey sweatshirt that look soft and expensive. He was also wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. I dimly recalled that he wore glasses sometimes and I felt bad about not asking about this back in the tunnel, but I supposed that he probably had nothing to look at in there anyway. He had had a shave, too. Without the grizzly stubble I had grown used to over the last couple of days, he looked more like EXO's Chanyeol, and less like the man who I had been surviving with. I felt it again, that jolt of disconnection, a distancing that I wasn't ready for. It was absurd, I knew. It had only been a few days.

I realized I was staring when Chanyeol looked up from tossing onions in a pan to where I was standing on the bottom stair. Our eyes met and I wondered if he felt a sense of ending too. I thought he gave me an apologetic smile, but it was dark in the kitchen. Kai sprang up from the stool and came over, taking my wrist and dragging me to the island to sit next to him. Chanyeol looked away as soon as Kai touched me. Was he still worried about the infection?

Kai pulled out a stool for me next to his.

"Did you sleep?" he asked me. He grinned and it was impossible not to grin back; his smile was so beautiful that it took me a few seconds to realize that I was staring again. He noticed too and looked away first, chuckling. This must happen to him a lot.

"Do you want some wine?"

He didn't wait for me to answer and poured a too-full glass of red. I looked around at the well-stocked kitchen, at the vegetables that Chanyeol had chopped and the dinner that he was cooking.

"Where did you get all of this food?" I asked. Chanyeol shrugged. This was probably normal for him, to have food just turn up. Chanyeol hadn't really had to think about where things came from all of his adult life. I had fallen right into the role of provider when we met because I knew that I couldn't catch the illness, but I hadn't thought that maybe it was what he had been expecting. I felt an unexpected stab of annoyance towards him. It must have shown on my face because he raised his eyebrows at me, confused. Kai didn't notice.

"Sungjin-hyung collected food before he left," Kai said. I remembered that Sungjin was their manager who protected Kai from Sehun and the other infected manager. As a fan, I was very grateful to him for his service. Kai went on but he looked a bit sheepish. "I needed more and Sungjin-hyung and Sehunie didn't come back, so I went to the apartments next to this one. No one was home." I couldn't help but laugh; he was blushing and looked so guilty about breaking into the apartments around him to scavenge food. Of course, they were probably empty; the infection didn't really start to spread until after everyone had already left for work. I patted Kai reassuringly on the arm. Chanyeol dropped a spoon against the work-surface and the clang made me jump back. I looked up in surprise, but he wasn't looking at us.

"I broke into a whole bunch of shops in the city," I said to Kai, in a tone I hoped was reassuring. He looked really troubled. "I broke into a supermarket for food, and a camping shop for supplies. I broke into a fancy sports shop to get a baseball for Chanyeol. I broke into Prada to steal these jeans," I said, gesturing towards my legs. Kai's eyes widened, and he started to laugh nervously. Poor Kai had probably never broken the law in his life.

"Dinner's ready," Chanyeol said, and started distributing a bizarre mixture of cuisines into bowls in front of us. It was delicious, and not just because it was the first proper meal I'd eaten in a week. Chanyeol and I had been surviving on cup noodles because they were the easiest thing to make with a camping stove in the dark. Even though there were definitely noodles in this soup-thing he made, it tasted different. Better. He was a good cook, and I told him so. He seemed pleased.

After we had eaten, Kai turned the conversation to Sehun. While I was asleep, he and Chanyeol had been talking about what happened to the missing member and they filled me in. It was a bit chaotic and they kept switching between languages, but I worked out most of it.

"Sungjin-hyung went to the store-" Kai.

"When did he go?" Chanyeol.

"When Sehunie woke up. No, the day after. Yes."

"So, they've been gone four days."

"Yes, four days ago, Sungjin-hyung came back and said he met a woman-"

"Who?"

"Hyung. I don't know. A woman-"

"Tell me again, what did she say?"

Kai sighed. This had clearly been a feature of their earlier conversation, him being asked to repeat himself. "Sungjin-hyung said she was going to a big park near here. Or near a park. I don't know. She said there were people who survived and people like Sehunie."

"Koreans?" Chanyeol.

"People who recovered from the infection?" I asked. Kai nodded enthusiastically at me.

"Was it Regent's Park?" I asked, remembering what the girl at Russell Square had said, about people gathering north of the center, at some cricket grounds. It seemed too much of a coincidence. Kai nodded again.

"That sounds like the word. Regents."

"So, Sehunie and Sungjin-hyung went to the park?" Chanyeol.

Kai nodded, but he looked troubled.

"Sehunie was being a bit weird." Kai.

"Weirder than usual?"

I laughed at this, and both of them turned towards me.

"Sorry," I said. "It's just... as a fan, Sehun seems funny and kind of weird. I didn't realize that was what he was actually like."

"Sehunie is funny," said Chanyeol, a bit defensively.

"He is also weird," said Kai, seriously. "Anyway, he was more... weird. He was talking very fast - fast, fast - and he was walking around the room-" Kai stood up and walked around and around the kitchen island as he talked. "He was talking about being sick and being fine, and how other people might be sick and be fine, and how we were going to the park-"

"Jonginah, sit down," said Chanyeol gently. Kai retook his seat.

"Do you want more wine?" Kai.

"Yes, please." I held out my glass. Chanyeol watched Kai pour the wine, and then fished a glass and a bottle of whisky from a cupboard and poured himself a generous measure.

"Tomorrow, we will go to the park, yes?" Kai looked to Chanyeol, who nodded. I was about to ask if I could tag along since I had nothing better to do and spending more time with two of EXO was what I would have chosen to do on literally any day if it had ever been an option before the apocalypse. Kai beat me to it.

"Will you come with us?" he asked, putting his hand on my shoulder and looking so sincere that I couldn't have refused him if I had a will to.

"Of course," I said, and he grinned at me. Chanyeol downed his whisky and poured another. Kai glanced at him, then stood up.

"I'm going to bed. I love you, hyung," he winked and pointed at Chanyeol in an exaggerated and painfully affectionate way that made Chanyeol smile. "Goodbye, noona" he said, waving to me and making for a corridor off the kitchen.

"Goodnight," I said, then remembered something I forgot to ask. It was hard to remember anything when he was looking straight at me. "Kai, can I ask you... why did you stay? Why didn't you go to the park with Sehun and your manager?"

Kai turned, looking puzzled about the question.

"I waited for hyung," he said. His tone suggested that it should have been obvious. He grinned at Chanyeol again, and then left us alone. I heard a door close softly in the corridor.

The silence suddenly felt very thick. We had spent a week together, but it felt at this moment like we were strangers. That easy familiarity that had come with being comrades in a crisis had faded with the introduction of another person. And not just anyone: a surrogate brother to him, and an idol to me. After a moment of awkward silence, Chanyeol picked up his refilled whisky-glass.

"Do you want to go upstairs?"

I thought I hadn't heard him.

"What?"

"To the sofa. Upstairs," he said, matter-of-factly. He didn't wait for me to answer, just scooped up my wine glass in his free hand and made for the stairs.

"Please bring the candles," he called back. My face must have been red from the wine, I told myself, as I followed him upstairs.

He waited for me to sit down before putting my wine in front of me. It was full-dark in here now, and no light was coming through the big windows. I realized that London had never been this dark for me. It was unsettling. I put the two candles I had taken with me on the table. They were expensive and scented, and I wondered if they had been in the apartment before or if they were some of the things EXO's manager had scrounged from the surrounding area. I recognized the brand as one of fancy shops that lined the concourse in the train station below. The room was very quiet. I thought I could hear a clock somewhere. Did St Pancras Station have one of those big clocks? My mind was racing, and I had to take a breath to calm myself down. Chanyeol sat about three feet from me. I could smell his cologne and I tried not to think about how good it was. I picked up my wine glass and drank deep.

"Sorry," he said. I glanced across at him, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking into his whisky. "I'm sorry for the stairs." He looked pained, and I knew I had already forgiven him anyway, so I didn't drag it out.

"I know why you did it," I said gently. "I would have, too. I should have told you I was immune, and that I couldn't get sick again. I wasn't fully sure, until it happened, I suppose." He just shrugged, but some of the tension left him, and he sat back, angling his body towards me slightly.

"Kai is happy to see you," I said, for something to say.

"You can use his real name. He'd like that. His name is Kim Jongin."

I had to laugh at that.

"You think I don't know his name?" I said, chuckling. "I know his name, but I don't know him. Yet. When we're friends, I'll use his real name."

"You always use my real name."

"Your name is your stage name," I said, fiddling with the stem of my wineglass. What was he getting at?

"I know," he said. "But you could call me Park Chanyeol, or Chanyeol-ssi when we speak in Korean. You're older than me, you could call me Chanyeol-ah now, if you wanted."

"I call you Chanyeol when we speak in Korean," I pointed out. "That's your stage name." Truthfully, I didn't fully understand the cultural naming practices well enough to be confident with it. I just knew that it would be awkward to call him the equivalent of Mr Chanyeol. Anything else would be too familiar. "What should I call you?" I asked. Please don't be cheesy and answer in your own song lyrics, I thought. If he did, I had walked right into it.

Chanyeol shrugged, but he smiled slightly like he knew what I was thinking.

"Call me...what you like. Noona." I reached out and tapped him lightly on the arm, and he laughed. This felt better, him teasing me. We chatted lightly for a few minutes and drank our drinks. Chanyeol told me about his relationship with Kai and with Sehun. He had clearly been missing them desperately while they were separated. He talked about them like brothers, and I wondered what that felt like. To have someone so close to you they felt like an extension of yourself.

"I have two brothers," I said, when he asked. It was amazing that we had spent so long together and never actually talked about this stuff. Down in the tunnel, things had seemed so scary, though. There didn't seem to be any point in investing in each other emotionally. I mean, I knew a lot more about him than he could know about me anyway. I was fairly emotionally invested in the celebrity already. Up here, I felt safe, and like I was talking directly to the man - to Park Chanyeol, not EXO Chanyeol. I told him about my family.

"My dad died when I was younger, and my mother remarried. She has a family with her new husband, but I don't know my brothers. I've only met them a few times. I was old enough to go to boarding school when my dad died, so I wasn't really part of her life after that."

"That's sad," he said. I shrugged.

"It is what it is. I don't miss what I don't remember. She wasn't very present when I was a child anyway." He nodded, but he didn't say anything to that. I didn't want to bring up his parents or his family in Korea; he must be worried.

"Your friend..." he started, then trailed off.

"Jeremy," I said. He didn't ask, but I knew he was wondering if I thought Jeremy was alive. I shook my head, sadly.

"Jonginah is alive," he said. "We can find your friend." He almost sounded like he meant it and wasn't just trying to make me feel better. I finished my wine in one long draught. It was a nice thought, but it was unnecessary; even if Jeremy were alive, I had no way of finding him.

"Are you really okay?" he asked quietly, just as I was thinking about going to bed.

"Hmm?"

He reached over and took my arm, where the Infected had touched me. He ran the pad of his thumb over the inside of my wrist and I hoped he couldn't hear my heart pounding from where he sat. He held me lightly, the rough callouses on his fingertips dragging ever-so lightly on my skin.

"Are you really okay?" he asked again. "I was afraid that you were sick. Really afraid." He wasn't looking at me, but down at my wrist, pale in the candlelight.

"It's okay," I said, hoping my voice didn't sound like it was shaking. I wished he would stop touching me, but I also didn't want him to let go. "I'm okay."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Good," he said, and he moved. I thought he was going to let go of my wrist, but he didn't. He pulled me towards him and closed the distance between us.

When he kissed me, I could taste the whisky on his tongue. It was peaty, and there was an underlying sweetness too. His lips were soft, and they moved expertly, parting mine to deepen the kiss. He gave me a second to react, to push him away if I didn't want this, but of course I wanted it. In fact, I couldn't believe that he did too. I knew bizarre circumstance had pushed us together, but things like this didn't happen with people like me and people like him. It was ludicrous to say that I'd always wanted him. He was beautiful but seeing him as a fan sees an idol isn't like spending time with a person. I couldn't say when it was exactly that I had started to have feelings for him, but the personage of him as a real, living, breathing man whose company I craved was an idea that had probably coalesced in my mind just today. When he walked out of that shop with the sword, when we heard the gunshots and I was afraid for us. When I saw the hordes of Infected outside St Pancras Station and I was terrified for him. When I thought I had lost him on top of that stairs. When I saw him with Kai.

I reached around his neck, and I shifted closer on the couch. He pulled me to him by the waist and snaked an arm around my shoulder so we were curled together on the seat. There was no hurry to our motions, and I felt him smile against my mouth as he kissed me.

"What?" I asked, drawing back slightly to look straight at him like I hadn't really been able to before. The freckle on his nose was just visible in the half-light and the dimple beside his mouth was deep in shadow. I leaned in to kiss it lightly. When I drew back, his eyes behind his glasses were dark, pupils dilated. My breath was coming out ragged, my heart hammering. He pushed a stray hair behind my ear and leaned in, feathering my jawline with his lips as he trailed a path up to my ear.

"I knew I was your favorite member," he whispered, and kissed me lightly on the neck. I shivered. It was perfect, being here with him like this, the heat coming off of his lanky frame making me dizzy. I assumed we weren't going to stop here, on the couch. I assumed I would be back in his room in minutes, pulling off my jeans and his. That's probably why I said what I said. Because I was stupid and thought he could take it. That and I was probably getting a bit drunk. I'd had half a bottle of wine, after all.

"Actually, you're not my EXO bias," I said, gasping lightly as his hand ran under my shirt and skimmed my ribs. His fingers stilled.

"No?"

I didn't see that he was serious.

"My EXO bias is Kai," I said, giggling.

Chanyeol moved back so quickly, I almost lost my balance.

"Wha-"

"Why?"

"Why... why what?"

"Why is he- why would you say this? Now?"

Too late, I realized he was angry. He had already stood up and was walking away.

"Chanyeol-"

He swore in Korean and stalked off down the stairs. I should have gone after him. I didn't. I didn't know how to repair this. So instead, I stared at the space where he had disappeared for a few long minutes, then adjusted my clothes and blew out the candles.


	10. Day 7, the apartment

I took my time getting ready the next morning. I hoped that by the time I was washed and dressed, they would both be ready to leave, and we wouldn't have time to chat over the kitchen island. This hope was in vain. Kai was standing at the sink when I came downstairs eating granola from a box and wearing nothing but his underwear and an open plaid shirt. He grinned when he saw me.

"Hi noona. Are you hungry?" The way he said this, with a slight lift to his immaculately shaped eyebrows, told me that he had spoken to Chanyeol already and probably knew everything. I could feel my face heating up but there was nothing for it: I had to face him. Both of them.

"Yes, I'm hungry," I said. "Can I make some coffee?" It grated on me how good Kai looked in the morning, his undercut hair swept to one side and artfully tousled like the stylist had just left. His abs were clearly defined under the open shirt and I had to turn my head away from him to keep from staring as I walked around the island to where the food was. When he didn't move out of my way and I had to step over his long legs, stretched out across the narrow passage between the island and the sink, I glared at him.

"What?" he asked smirking, pouty lips cynically upturned, and then he winked so suggestively that I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing. Thankfully, he did too.

"I'm sorry, noona. It was funny," he said, and walked around the island to sit on one of the stools. Whatever act he had been putting on was dropped, and I was immeasurably grateful.

"It's okay," I said, digging out a jar of instant coffee from the pile of groceries their manager had brought back. "Did you talk to Chanyeol?"

Kai nodded and continued to eat his granola.

"We talked last night. Hyung is really angry." He said this last bit in a stage whisper, chuckling. I shook my head, feeling my face heat up. I busied myself turning on the grill and finding a pan to boil some water in.

"Do you want some coffee?" I asked him.

"No, thank you. Hyung likes you. You maybe shouldn't have said that I'm your favorite member," said Kai. He was smiling at me, but there was concern behind his words too. He was trying to look out for his brother. I didn't answer him since I didn't have an answer for him. We were communicating using two different languages in half of our sentences, and I was sure I had the vocabulary in either language to explain why I had said it since I didn't know myself. I thought he would find it funny, I guessed. I was wrong. Instead, I changed the subject and asked him about the weather, and then about his missing manager. Sungjin seemed to be the manager Kai was closest too. When the water was nearly boiled, I poured out a cup of bitter instant coffee and leaned against the island to drink it, helping myself to some melba toast from a box.

I asked about Chanyeol's manager, Jisoo, who I had met at the venue on the first day of the outbreak, but Kai said she hadn't been back. I wondered where she had gone on the second day, without so much as a word. I had assumed she had come back to the apartment. I wondered then if maybe she had become Infected and had crept away before infecting the rest of us. I said this to Kai and he just shrugged, but he looked sad. The weight of this whole situation was denting even his sunny disposition.

While we were talking, I heard a door open softly in the corridor beside the kitchen. Kai was talking about Sehun's elated mood when he woke up from the sickness and didn't seem to notice, but we both heard the bathroom door slam shut a couple of seconds later. I winced.

"He's so angry," said Kai, seriously this time. "I'll talk to him."

"No," I said, "it's fine. It's my mess, I'll fix it." Kai gave me a long, measuring look, and eventually nodded in agreement. When he was finished eating, he walked around to my side of the island. I stood back to let him pass but he didn't. He stopped right in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders, so I had to crane my neck up to look at him or risk getting caught eyeing his muscled abdomen. Again.

"Noona."

"What is it?" I just managed to get the word out. This close, Kai was startling to look at. It was bizarre that it was the thing that I noticed but his skin wasn't flawless. His big dimples were set deep, and his jawline had a few blemishes that only served to make his overall beauty more outstanding. I'd challenge anyone, even Chanyeol, to stand this close to Kai and not be blown away by his attractiveness. I could have lied to Chanyeol, but I couldn't lie to myself: Kai was my EXO bias. But he wasn't the person I liked right now. And he wasn't looking at me the way Chanyeol had looked at me last night. His dark doe-eyes were earnest.

"Thank you for rescuing Chanyeol-hyung. I am so thankful. You know that, right?"

"I know," I said, hoping my face looked sincere and not like I wished he would stop touching me right now, with half of his clothes on. Before I could say anything else, he pulled me into a hug and my face was pressed against that muscular chest and I had no idea what to do with my hands. After an awkward couple of seconds, I rested them lightly on his sides, outside of the shirt. Thankfully, he let go and stepped around me after a brief moment, and I could breathe again. I wished I hadn't, since the air he had just vacated smelled like his body had, like honey and cotton and faintly of sweat. I turned away to clear my head, and saw Kai disappear into the corridor. He reached out as he passed to clap on Chanyeol's shoulder. Chanyeol was standing just inside the kitchen, staring at the spot where Kai had hugged me. He looked livid.


	11. Day 7, the streets

There was no talking to Chanyeol after that. He crashed about the kitchen making breakfast. I offered him coffee and he made a noise. He was acting like a child, and after a couple of minutes of this, I started to get angry. I had been tactless, yes, but he was way too old to be acting like a teenager. So, even though he didn't answer me, I made him coffee. It was the most passive-aggressive thing I could think of doing, to prove to him that I could be an adult while he was being ridiculous. I poured it and set it on the island in front of him and then I left, climbing the stairs two at a time.

Back in the bedroom, I unpacked the contents of my bag and decided what to take with me. I thought about washing the grime out of some of my clothes, and then reconsidered. It wouldn't dry in time for us to leave, and I didn't think I would be coming back here anyway. So, I packed a few remaining pairs of clean underwear and some shirts and dumped the rest into a plastic bag to put in the bin downstairs. I packed a few other useful things like the camping stove and my dad's knife and the good torch I bought, and some dry survival bars I'd found in the camping shop. I had no idea what to expect out there, or where we might end up. The only thing I knew I needed was my parka and the baseball bat, so I picked up both and carried them down to the front door with my backpack. Then I sat on the sofa in the lounge and waited. The candles and glasses were still there from last night. I eyed them nervously for a couple of minutes, then gathered them up and shut them into the TV cabinet. It wasn't like the Air BnB rating would be affected.

Chanyeol and Kai climbed the stairs together, talking jovially to each other in Korean. Chanyeol was laughing about something Kai was saying. I had never been as jealous of anyone as I was of Kai in that second because I couldn't see how Chanyeol was ever going to laugh with me again like that. He seemed so angry with me. Both were fully dressed, Kai in a soft purple sweater that was fashionably baggy but expertly fitted to show off his immaculate frame and stonewash jeans, and Chanyeol in a red plaid shirt and black jeans. When they saw me, their reactions couldn't have been more different. Chanyeol just scowled and sat down on the floor rather than share any part of the L-shaped sofa with me. Kai beamed like he hadn't just riled up his friend for no reason and sat himself next to me. I glared at him and moved to the other end of the sofa. His smile dimmed slightly, but it didn't disappear. I suddenly felt bad, and then shook myself. That's what he relies on, I told myself. His stupid, beautiful face. I opened my notebook on a blank page and started drawing.

"This is Euston Road," I said, without preamble. "We're here, and Regent's Park is here. It's massive and we have no idea what we're looking for. So," I jabbed at a squiggle I'd made on the map that marked out the place where the fountain and the theatre were, "I suggest we aim for this bit. It's kind of a focal point, and we might run into someone there who can tell us more. We can get into the park here." I punctuated my point by drawing a line between where the symbol for the fountain was and Park Crescent. In theory, we were forty minutes away. In practice... I didn't know what we might have to face outside. So much seemed to be changing now that the Infected had become aggressive, and we had been in this apartment for nearly 14 hours. I turned to Kai.

"Do you have a weapon?" I asked him. He looked alarmed, glancing between me and Chanyeol. I wondered if he didn't understand for a second, but then he pointed at the pool table near the door.

"That?" he asked, and to demonstrate, walked over and picked up one of the cues. He hefted it like a javelin. It would have to do.

"Sure," I said. "If you have any gloves, too, get them. Both of you need to protect your exposed skin." I looked around. Chanyeol was still glaring murderously at the table, and Kai was playing with the pool cue, twirling it like a baton in his long fingers. I had nothing else to say, but "Let's go."

The doorway was clear when we got downstairs. I checked first, and then cautiously walked out into the forecourt. There were Infected corpses scattered about, but none too near the doorway. I knew I was going to have to inspect some of those corpses at some point and it was making me nauseous just thinking about it. There were suspicious-looking marks on some of the ones nearest to us, but I wanted Chanyeol and Kai to be clear before I stopped to look. I waved them both out, Chanyeol carrying his sword again and Kai wielding the pool cue. Both looked, in their hats and masks and gloves and expensive streetwear, like they were shooting a music video of the zombie apocalypse. I saw them to the center of the concourse, and then told them to wait as I inspected one of the corpses.

"What is it?" Chanyeol asked.

"Probably nothing," I said. "Just wait here."

One of the Infected had collapsed near the entrance to the hotel. He wasn't moving at all, but I poked him with the end of the baseball bat to be sure. I was close enough then to confirm what I had thought I'd seen, anyway. Teeth marks dug into his neck, and there was a bloody tear on one side of his head, where half of his face had been. The strongest Infected, like the ones who had torn the dog apart, were starting to feed on their own numbers. I cast a quick glance around at the other corpses in the forecourt, and then went back to where I had left Chanyeol and Kai.

"We need to be careful of the corpses," I said, pointing at the dead Infected on the ground. "The Infected have started to eat each other. I don't think they like it, though, none of these look..." I stopped to take a breath, because I was afraid, I was going to throw up, "-chewed on. Maybe the sickness makes someone taste weird." I had to stop again because I could feel myself begin to gag. They had to hear this, though. "If you see an Infected lying down and they look dead, give them space anyway. The body might still be dangerous if the others won't...um, eat it." I coughed a little bit and stepped around them so they wouldn't see my eyes water. Kai watched me, concern in his eyes, and Chanyeol – apparently forgetting his petty anger for a moment - almost reached out to steady me, but held his arm back at the last second. I kept walking towards the gate, and they followed until they flanked me as we walked out onto the road.

There were Infected corpses everywhere as we walked. Having to pick our way around them meant that it took nearly half an hour to get only a couple of dozen meters as far as the British Library, where we saw a pack – and there really was no other word for it – of Infected cross our path at the next intersection. They were moving faster than I'd seen Infected move before, with more purpose. They were definitely not survivors; they were covered in blood and vomit. One of them saw us and broke from the group, ambling in our direction, filmy eyes staring and unblinking. When he began to pick up pace, about twenty meters away, I pushed Kai behind me and stepped in front of Chanyeol.

"Stay back," I said quietly.

"He doesn't understand," Chanyeol.

"I'm not talking to him," I hissed. "Stay back." Then, I stepped forward and swung the bat with everything I had in me, straight at the Infected's head.

There was a crack like nothing I had ever heard before. It was like a wet and dry noise at the same time. I stumbled back into Chanyeol's chest and he caught my arm to steady me and didn't let go. If he had, I might have fallen. The Infected had dropped to the ground and wasn't moving. Blood was seeping from a wound where his head had hit the ground. There was a visible dent where I had hit him. It was a killing blow, and I had done that. Infected or not, I had killed a man.

There was no time to dwell on what I had done. Our movement was attracting attention from the other Infected nearby.

"Is there another road?" Chanyeol asked quietly, his tone edged with urgency.

"There... yes, there's other roads. But they're smaller. We're safer out here. We can't get cornered." I straightened up and looked away from the bloody corpse on the ground. "We should keep off the middle of the road though. Come on." I led them to the path, where I hoped the shadow of the buildings would keep us out of sight from the Infected or other survivors. We had this first group to get through first, though. Before we even got far, two more Infected had peeled off from the group and were shambling towards us.

"We can help," Kai said to me, as I pushed him behind me and I knew I was going to have to let them help. I couldn't keep two Infected off at once. So, I nodded curtly and stepped to the side.

"Distract the little one, I'll take the tall guy." The tall Infected coming towards me had a bigger reach than Chanyeol, and I was hoping to take him down before he could get around me.

From what I could tell, the Infected weren't blind. The milky lens over their eyes seemed to be a byproduct of the sickness. I swallowed bile as I wondered whether or not my eyes had filmed over when I was sick. The Infected still seemed to have their strength, enough to rip a dog apart, but their response time was slow. So, as the tall one made to grab for me, I ducked around him and swung the bat at the back of his head, sending him sprawling to the ground. When he was down, I drove the bat down into the top of his spine. I think I was crying because when I was doing this, my vision was blurry. I stood over the body and looked down at him, unmoving on the tarmac. A sudden grunt from a short distance away brought me back to my senses: Kai and Chanyeol were still fighting the other Infected.

Kai was using the pool cue to keep the Infected at bay, while Chanyeol made shallow stabs at its torso. If I hadn't been terrified and in shock, it might have looked hilarious. I knew that he was trying to minimize blood spatter, but the little jabbing motions he was making with the sword were like something out of a fencing manual. I walked up behind the Infected and brought the baseball bat down on top of its head, toppling it, then I finished it like the other one. Kai and Chanyeol were staring at me. I had killed three Infected in less than ten minutes, and I was already bone-weary.

"We need to move," I said to them, and they nodded mutely. As I passed him, Chanyeol reached out and took my hand and held onto it. There was that one thing at least to come out of this disaster. Fighting for your life can make anything seem unimportant.


	12. Days 7-8

We left St Pancras just after midday, and by three o'clock, we were only at the top of Tottenham Court Road. We moved slowly, to avoid large groups of Infected and piles of dead. At one point, we had to take a detour into another street because of I thought I saw a group of Infected eating something ahead of us. Near Euston Square tube station, we ran into another group of Infected unexpectedly wandering in and out of the underpass, and I had to finish four of them. A couple of minutes after that, a sound on the road startled us and the Infected, who scattered into the underpass, and I pulled Chanyeol and Kai into a doorway. On the south side of the road, beyond the central barrier, a car roared out of the tunnel from the west. It was an expensive sportscar, driving dangerously fast and crashing into a couple of Infected that were stumbling about in front of the tube station. The car didn't even slow, and in a burst of exhaust it sped off in the direction we had just come from. We watched the exhaust fumes, all of us mesmerized by this utterly banal happening while the world had gone to shit. I could hear the car long after it disappeared.

"Crazy bastard," Kai muttered in Korean, and Chanyeol and I nodded. The car had the effect of dispersing some of the Infected, but it took another hour to go another block because we were right in front of a major hospital. After a while of slow going, I decided to take us off the main road and around by some side-streets until we were clear. The Infected outside of the hospital weren't as active as some of the groups we had seen. I was starting to worry, though, that the piles of corpses we were coming across would start to pose a more mundane threat. I knew nothing about how things like bacteria worked, but I did know that leaving piles of dead bodies around cities for flies and animals and everything else to scavenge on could make people sick too. If we – or, Chanyeol and Kai, at least – were going to survive the bigger threat of whatever made the Infected sick, we couldn't even risk a head cold right now. The smell was also starting to build, and I knew that would overpower us soon if we didn't get away from the Infected.

I took us north and around some quiet side streets, and we finally reached the edge of Regent's Park just after half-past four. I was exhausted and hungry, and all I had thought about was getting us to the park. As we stood outside one of the gates, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no clue what to do now. I had been relying on us finding someone or something that would give us an idea as to where this alleged survivor's camp was located.

"Do we go in?" Chanyeol asked me, when I didn't move for a few minutes. I was trying to work out how long it might take us to get to the garden I'd suggested, and how many Infected we might find when we got there. I had thought it would take us half an hour to get here, though. It was already getting on for evening.

"Let's eat," Kai said. "We can sleep and eat and go in tomorrow."

I almost protested. What if something happened to Sehun while we took a break? But Sehun was immune... and he would be just as lost tomorrow as he was now, except that if we got lost in the next couple of hours, it would be dark, and we would be in a park. Kai was right: we should rest and eat and go in tomorrow.

I nodded, and turned, making my way up the street that ran outside the park. Chanyeol didn't ask where we were going; he just allowed himself to be led, like he had back at the tunnel. Kai too seemed to assume that I knew what I was doing. It was odd – because they relied on me, I felt like I couldn't give up. I couldn't sit down on the ground and cry about the awful things I'd had to do today. I could only walk and look and find us somewhere safe to stay tonight.

There was a row of fancy-looking houses set back from the road. Houses like this housed more than their residents. They were rich-people houses and there were people who worked in them, who were probably there when the sickness took hold. I knew that the risk of running into survivors or Infected was high, but these houses also had reinforced windows and thick doors, and right now that seemed more important. I chose one of the houses at random, one of the ones that didn't have a car parked outside. The curtains were open, so I figured there wouldn't be a frightened survivor in there. I hefted my baseball bat and walked up to the door, expecting to have to beat the lock off of it. Kai rushed ahead of me.

"Wait," he said, and gently pushed the door. It swung open on well-oiled hinges. I stared into the hallway, honey-colored parquet illuminating the space between the door and an elaborate switchback staircase.

"How did you know it was open?" I asked, hardly believing our luck. Kai just shrugged.

"A guess," he said, and pointed to where a stain on the stairs indicated week-old vomit. I could see his reasoning. An Infected had run into or out of this house at some point. I raised the bat again.

"Let me check," I said, and left them in the hallway. The house wasn't a house at all, but an apartment. It was deep, stretching back into a utility area and a kitchen. There were two lounges on this floor, and a small bathroom. There was no access to the downstairs, so I assumed that the basement was another apartment. I hoped that meant that there weren't five floors above me. I was right about that; there were four bedrooms upstairs, but the stairs only went that far, disappearing into the ceiling where another apartment, presumably, bottomed out above us. Three of the bedrooms were empty but the last one had a corpse on the floor. The door to that bedroom had been shut, and a side-table pulled hastily across it. After looking in on the corpse, I shut the door again and replaced the side table. Downstairs, I found a long kitchen leading on to a dining room that looked well-used. The kitchen opened out into a utility area at the back, and a rear entrance where, presumably, someone had been before they were Infected a few days before. The back door was open, and a small pile of letters and packages littered the ground outside. The postman, then; either they became Infected or they were the one doing the infecting. There was a noise from the alley. I looked out and saw an Infected slumped against the rear wall, wearing a high-vis and carrying a satchel. There were bits of ... bloody things all over the yard. The postman looked at me through white eyes, and I shut the door quietly, locking it.

When I got back to the front of the apartment, Chaneyol and Kai had moved into the lounge at the front of the house.

"There's an Infected upstairs, it's dead. I think. There's another one in the garden. Look, I think we should stay down here," I punctuated my sentence with hand gestures that I hoped made me more intelligible. I was so exhausted I wasn't even sure I could have understood myself.

Kai shut one of the doors into the hallway and then steered me onto the big leather couch in the center of the room. I let myself be sat down and then watched as he and Chanyeol had a hurried conversation in rapid Korean. Kai was holding his pool cue and was gesturing with it, then turned towards the rest of the apartment, through the double doors I'd just come through. Chanyeol made to pick up his sword and follow him, but Kai put his hand on his shoulder. I vaguely understood that he was telling Chanyeol to stay and heard something that sounded like 'not okay', as he pointed to me. Eventually, Chanyeol nodded, and Kai left the room, shutting the double doors behind him. I shucked off my parka and put my head on my knees.

Chanyeol crouched down in front of me and after a moment, when I didn't move, he gently put his hand on my shoulder, and I started to cry. I wasn't sure why I was crying, or what exactly it was that had triggered it. I'd killed about a dozen Infected today and it wasn't sinking in. I should feel worse about it. I wasn't crying about their lives, though. If anything, I was crying because of mine. I sobbed into my knees for about ten minutes, and Chanyeol just knelt there with me, muttering softly in Korean. Eventually, I looked up at him. I must look terrible. His dark eyes were huge and concerned-looking, and he was worrying his bottom lip.

"Are you okay?" he asked, when I didn't say anything. He reached out and ran his thumb across my left cheek. "You fought today. You worked so hard." I started to tear up again.

"I'm tired, Chanyeol."

"I know," he said. "Jonginah is getting things to sleep on." Then, proving the truth of what he had said, Kai backed into the room with an armful of bedding. I recognized the three duvets from the empty kingsize beds upstairs. Chanyeol moved the ugly but expensive-looking coffee table from the carpet in front of the fireplace to the other end of the room and they laid out the blankets on the ground. I watched them and even doing that was making me sleepy, so I lay back on the couch and fell asleep. Chanyeol shook me awake and made me eat one of the survival bars in my backpack after about an hour. They had got a fire going in the grate in front of the sofa, and he told me they were planning to use my little camping stove to boil some water, if I wanted to wait and eat with them. I just shook my head, and he helped me over to the blankets where I fell asleep again, instantly.

A sound outside woke me up in the middle of the night, and I sat up groggily. It was dark in the room, the fire burned down to coals. In the dim red glow that remained, I made out the two others, asleep next to me. Chanyeol was in the middle, facing away from me, his arm stretched out across the other pillow. Kai was curled into him, his forehead resting against Chanyeol's chest. They were both breathing deeply, fast asleep. I stood up carefully so as not to disturb them. They looked so cute that I wished – for the first time since the disaster hit – I had my phone for its camera. I crept to the window to see what had made the noise that had woke me up. It was full-dark outside, with no streetlights or moon to illuminate anything. I couldn't see anyone out there. The sound had been short, sharp, and I realized then what it was: a gunshot. My heart started to thump, but I forced myself to take a deep breath. Between the gunshot and the car this afternoon... things had really broken down. It had been a week and the whole city had descended into chaos. I told myself that we were safe. This was a rich-people house. The windows were probably reinforced, and the door definitely was, and sometime after I'd gone to sleep, the other two had dragged one of the smaller couches across the room to block one of the two doors in. The second door had a lock on it, and the coffee table was pushed against it. I had to use the bathroom, so I moved the table and let myself out.

The apartment was so quiet, it was creepy. I tiptoed along the hallway floor to the guest bathroom beside the stairs, and when I was finished, I seriously considered not flushing the toilet in case it would alert anyone else in the building to our presence. As I stood there, though, I reasoned with myself that I would rather fight a dozen Infected right now than let either of the EXO members I was with see that I had used the bathroom in the middle of the night. So, I flushed it and absolutely nothing jumped out at me as I made my way back to the lounge. When I was settled under the covers again, Chanyeol reached back and fumbled blindly until he found my hand. He slipped his fingers through mine and pulled my arm around so that I was on my side. The pad of his thumb traced little circles on the back of my hand, and the fabric of his t-shirt was warm and soft against my forehead. I fell asleep like that, with my arm around his waist.


	13. Day 8, Regent's Park

We walked to the outdoor theatre in Regent's Park the next morning. There were a few Infected around the park, but we were far enough away from them that there were no incidents until we got to the place where the fountain was, where a horrifying sight awaited us. I had become very adept at turning my eyes away from things I didn't want to see over the last week. Up to now, I'd kept my head turned whenever I saw any Infected shorter than 5ft, and as the days had gone by, there had been fewer and fewer of them. But the group of Infected children around the fountain were impossible to ignore. The fountain itself had turned red, and there were corpses floating in it. The five children who stood around the fountain looked inhuman, more animal than person, and they stared at us, open mouthed, as we approached. I panicked. I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it if they came at us. I could swing my baseball bat at an attacking Infected who was the same height as me, taller than me, older than me, stronger than me... but a child? I couldn't do that. So, I grabbed Kai by the sleeve and tightened my hold on Chanyeol's hand, and I started to run. I ran straight to the theatre and along the edge, until we couldn't see the children anymore. And then I stopped and started to hyperventilate. I wasn't the only one. Kai was semi-hysterical, stage-whispering in Korean. I made out the word for 'child,' but not much else. Chanyeol was the only one who kept his cool and looked around for any way out.

"There isn't a camp here. We're in the wrong place," he said to me, and I nodded. "Where else?"

I sat down on one of the chairs and tried to clear my head. Where else? There was nothing but open space north of where we were, and a university nearby. I only ever came to Regent's Park in the summer, for picnics.

"There are some fields and cricket pitches over that way," I said, pointing. "We should be able to see anyone gathering... but it's open ground, there's no cover." I couldn't imagine that any sort of commune or gathering was taking place up here. There was nowhere they could go. I turned to Kai. "What did Sungjin say again? Do you remember?"

Kai crouched down on the ground and stared into the middle distance and I thought he hadn't understood me.

"There was a woman," he said slowly. "She was meeting people who survived. She was going to Regent's Park. Or near a park." He looked up at me. "That's it."

I ran this over in my head. Near Regent's Park didn't actually mean Regent's Park. And that girl at Russell Square had said something about a cricket ground. But there were lots of cricket grounds in Regent's Park. Unless-

"Lords!" I shouted. Kai started and almost lost his balance, bracing himself on the chair in front. "They're gone to Lords!" I said, excitedly. Finally, something was starting to make sense. It was defensible. It was big enough to house a lot of people. There were tall buildings there that looked out at the streets around it.

"What is it? Lords." Chanyeol.

"Lords is a cricket ground," I explained. "It's got huge fences all around it, and big gates. It's a really good place to hide out, actually. And last Monday..." I tried to think. Jeremy was a massive cricket fan and had brought me along with him to matches and tests a couple of times a summer every summer since we were fourteen. Was there a fixture at Lords last Monday? I didn't think so. It was getting late in the season. "I think Lords was empty last Monday. So, it would have been a good place to hide out."

Both of them were staring at me like they had no idea what I was talking about. It wasn't impossible.

"You know cricket? The sport?" I asked them. Kai was shaking his head slowly.

"Like baseball," Chanyeol said, and then Kai nodded like he understood. I knew nothing about baseball, but I knew it was popular in South Korea.

"Sure," I said. "Anyway, it's where they play it. It's near here." I pointed in the vague direction of St John's Wood. "That could be where they went."

Chanyeol and Kai conferred briefly in Korean, and then both shrugged, and we stood up to go. I didn't want to go back to the fountain and see those feral Infected children again, so we skirted around the edge of the theatre, and out to Inner Circle. I knew roughly which direction I was going in but getting out of the park wasn't as straightforward as it should have been. My first instinct was to lead us back to Marylebone Road, but that would have brought us past Madam Tussauds, and knowing London, the area had probably been crawling with tourists last Monday. So, after a few switchbacks, we came out on Park Road a little further up, but at a part that was hemmed in by apartment buildings.

There were Infected everywhere. Eventually, Chanyeol got the idea to just run. There was no way we were fighting our way through the numbers of walking Infected between us and the cricket ground, so I checked both of them to make sure there was no exposed skin on their arms and legs, and they wrapped scarves around their masks so only their eyes were visible. We started to jog through the massed groups of Infected, speeding up as we went.

Once, just once, one of them was nearly caught. I was running ahead, clearing the path with my baseball bat. Chanyeol was bringing up the rear, swinging his sword wildly as he ran. Kai held his pool cue horizontally in front of him and stayed between us, but when one of the Infected lying on the path lunged for his leg, Kai jumped and lost his balance, and went sprawling. I heard him fall, and stopped abruptly, swinging about but terrified by what I was going to see. It had been two days – two days – since I'd met him in person, but I couldn't face losing him. Kai was such a good guy, such a genuinely sweet and well-meaning (if mischievous) person, that to lose him because we were too careless to take our time on this last stretch... well, I didn't think I could easily live with his life on my conscience. My world had narrowed to keeping him and Chanyeol alive. I didn't know what I'd do if I lost either of them now.

I couldn't react fast enough. I was too far away. But Chanyeol wasn't. As Kai stumbled to his feet, the Infected grabbed for him again, but Chanyeol raced forward and swung that ridiculous sword down in a murderous arc and took off the Infected's hand. It was bloody, and gruesome, and utterly heroic. He was standing there, grasping a dripping sword in both hands, his dark hair slipping out of his black hat. I couldn't even see half of his face because of the mask and scarf, but his eyes were so intense, focused on the Infected who had threatened his brother. He looked glorious. If we hadn't been surrounded by death on all sides, I'd have run to him and kissed him. He looked up at me like I was insane.

"Go!" he shouted, and I realized that I was standing stock still in the middle of the road, staring. I turned and started running again. It took us another half-hour of skirting the edge of Infected groups and piles of human suffering, but we finally reached. The gates, I was not surprised to find, were shut tight. When I saw a sentry – a definitely-not-Infected survivor sentry - posted just inside, I knew we had the right place. He was sitting against a wall inside the gate, and there was a cricket bat on the ground next to him. He was reading a book. I had assumed that when we found this place, it would be guarded. What I didn't expect was that I would know the guard. It was Jeremy.


	14. Day 8, Lords

I shouted and it took Jeremy a couple of seconds to react, like he hadn't actually heard anyone say his name in a while. He looked at me for a few long seconds, before he sprang up and sprinted over to the gate, hands grasping mine around the bars. It was him. I couldn't believe it. He was here. He was alive.

"What are you- you're-! Wha- are you sick? Who are they?" He was babbling, looking me up and down over and over, glancing past to Chanyeol and Kai then back to me. He wasn't blinking.

"Jeremy," I said. I kept saying his name, over and over, until he shut up. "Let us in," I said, finally. "There's Infected out here."

Jeremy seemed to notice for the first time that I was outside the fence and he was inside.

"Right," he said, looking down at the padlock that was holding the gate closed. "Right, I'll have to go and get someone." I frowned at him.

"You can't open it?"

"No, it's not allowed. Hold on, I'll be right back, please don't go anywhere."

He ran off in the direction of the stands. I turned to find that Chaneyol and Kai had taken off their scarves and masks, and were staring at me, wide eyed.

"That's my best friend," I said. "Jeremy." I looked to Chanyeol. "I told you about Jeremy." He didn't say anything, just raised his eyebrows and looked in the direction Jeremy had run off in.

Kai took my arm. "Ask about Sehun," he said earnestly, and I nodded.

When Jeremy came back he brought a harassed-looking older man with him, who turned out to be one of the Lord's groundskeepers. He had a ring of keys and unlocked the gate for us, but before he opened it, he asked us in detail about where we had been, if we had come into contact with any Infected, and if any of us were immune. When I said that I was, Jeremy's eyes widened. The groundskeeper just nodded and opened the gate, stepping back to let us through.

"Take her up to the Pavilion, when you can," the groundskeeper told Jeremy. "I'll watch the gate for a while. The other two can go on the field. There's some space near the Tavern Stand." I watched this interaction with rising alarm; Jeremy treated the groundskeeper like some sort of commanding officer. What was this place?

As soon as the groundskeeper turned away, Jeremy pulled me into a hug.

"I can't actually believe you're alive," he said. I wrapped my arms around him. His voice was shaking with emotion. "You're here and alive," he said again, and pulled back to looked at me, brushing the hair out of my face. I heard feet shuffle behind me, and then Kai cleared his throat loudly. I stepped back, a bit reluctantly. My friend looked like he was on the verge of tears, but he must have seen something in the expressions of the two idols behind me, because I saw him look up and his expression turned curious, if not downright confused.

"Right," he said. "You two can go to the camp on the field. Go to the marquee in the middle. Someone there will assign you a tent to sleep in." He grabbed my hand. "You and me, we go up to the Pav-"

"No," said Chanyeol, stepping forward and looking pointedly at our joined hands. "We stay together."

Jeremy looked at me, imploringly.

"Sorry, but I didn't catch your names. Did you tell me their names?" This to me. I hadn't. "Who are you?"

"Jeremy, this is Park Chanyeol and Kim Jongin," I said, gesturing to each of them in turn. "They're actually-" But Jeremy lit on something I'd said.

"I recognize one of those names. Chanyeol, isn't he the person you said was coming to that show in your building this week?"

I was desperately happy that I wasn't facing Chanyeol when Jeremy said this. I was a fan, he knew this. What he didn't know was that I was enough of a fan that I'd been looking out for his attendance at the fashion show last week. I must have turned scarlet; my face was burning. Jeremy didn't even notice.

"You're- or are you both- in one of those bands? Ah, yes. I saw you in The Guardian recently. BTS, isn't it?"

If I could have murdered Jeremy and then crawled under his corpse to die myself, I would have. I turned around to say something, hoping they wouldn't take being mistaken for someone else too seriously; they were famous after all. To my surprise, Kai and Chanyeol weren't looking at me, or Jeremy, but each other, and they were clearly struggling to contain themselves. Chanyeol turned away, but I could see that he was shaking. Kai caved first, breaking into a jovial smile that wasn't quite polite. He was very red. He reached out, proffering his hand.

"I am BTS Kai," he said deadpan, and I thought Chanyeol was going to choke. Jeremy leaned forward to shake his hand. Without even looking at Kai, Chanyeol yanked him back by the shoulder. I couldn't believe them; they were in hysterics. Jeremy glanced around, clearly at a loss as to why they were laughing and withdrew his own hand. He was puzzled. I had no idea what to say, so I didn't say anything. Good old English manners kicked in, and Jeremy decided to change the subject, seemingly remembering something.

"Actually, we've got someone like you up at the Pavilion," he said.

"A member of BTS?" I asked, confused (and not a little curiously hopeful). Chanyeol and Kai sobered suddenly.

"A Korean?" Chanyeol asked. "Is it Oh Sehun?" Chanyeol looked imploringly at Jeremy. Remarkably, Jeremy looked a bit cagey.

"I meant a famous singer or some-such, but yes he's Korean. I think. I think his name might be something like that. But he's up at the Pavilion, so we should..." he trailed off, stepping back to usher me in the direction he wanted me to go. I nodded to Kai and Chanyeol and they shrugged, following. When we got to the edge of the pitch, Jeremy directed them to what looked like a small refugee camp on the field.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Any survivors who come here can stay and get food and a place to sleep," he said. "Your friends can get a tent from the supply in the middle and pitch up around here." He pointed towards some space on the grass near us.

"Is this where you've been living?" I asked, realizing that he must have come to Lords a few days ago since he was already part of whatever weird social order was going on. Jeremy nodded.

"A few of us were holed up on Gordon Square, and then someone told us about the survivor camp here. We figured it would be safer to be around other people, for protection."

His explanation made so much sense but was so contrary to my experience of the outbreak that I almost laughed. I had spent a week hiding in the London Underground, avoiding Infected and survivors alike, when all of this time I could have been here, helping others. I noticed the fencing around the outside of the pitch, and I was sure it hadn't been there when we'd watched a test here a few weeks ago. Jeremy saw me looking.

"That's in case there's an outbreak. You see, we've divided the camp into quadrants, for quarantine if necessary."

I followed where he pointed. One of the quadrants was quiet, but there were tents inside.

"Is that what happened over there?" I asked.

"Someone smuggled back their sister when she was still unconscious, and we had to abandon the quadrant. That was on the second night here... when was it, maybe last Wednesday? Refugees don't go out on supply runs anymore, though, so it shouldn't happen again," he said this matter-of-factly, almost like I should be impressed. What did abandon the quadrant mean? Then I saw the disturbed earth at the center, and I felt sick. I turned to Jeremy.

"You can't leave?" I realized what he'd said.

"It's for everyone's safety."

"Jeremy, who runs this place?"

"It's managed by a small group who set the whole thing up; you'll meet them now. Up at the Pavilion. Come on," he said, reaching for my hand. I stepped back, out of his grasp, and turned to Chanyeol and Kai. I put down my baseball bat and took both of them by the arm, pulling them into a tight circle. I lowered my voice.

"I know you want us to stick together but I think we have to separate for a bit. I'm going to go and find out what's happening. I'm... this is a bit weird. I'll find Sehun, if he's here." I pulled them both into a three-way hug, and whispered, "See if you can find out what's going on in that camp. Okay?" I looked up at them to make sure they understood, and they both nodded.

"Be careful, noona," said Kai, and with one last squeeze of my shoulder, he stepped away.

Chanyeol wrapped both of his long arms around me and pulled me into a tight bear hug.

"Please find Sehun," he said. "And be safe." He took my face in his hands and leaned down to kiss me softly on the lips. He was so tall that I still had to go on tiptoe to kiss him back. Unbelievably, it was only the second time it had happened, but it already felt so comfortable, regardless of the funk he'd been in after last time. He had the power to make me forget that we were in a disaster, even that Jeremy and Kai were still standing around us. He let me go, and then he left with Kai. I watched them walk away: Chanyeol broad and imposing and still holding that sword, Kai graceful in his movements but powerful looking. They looked like heroes from a comic book. I missed them already. When I turned back to Jeremy, I found him staring at me, eyebrows so high they melded into his hairline.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"


	15. Day 8, Lords Pavillion

I filled Jeremy in on the way across the stands to the big red-brick Pavilion building. We were both still working on the shock of seeing each other alive after over a week of assuming that the other had died, and he kept looking at me. It was getting annoying.

"I'm fine," I said, once we were outside the door. He looked me over again.

"I still can't believe it," he said, and his smile was so relieved, so genuine. I almost forgot that he hadn't even tried to call me the morning of the outbreak. I had been thinking about it since I saw him at the gate. I know I'd called him – his office, his mobile – when I woke up. There hadn't even been a missed call on my phone. He had been alive all this time, and he hadn't tried to get in contact with me when the world went to hell? Everything about his place was starting to worry me.

We entered the Pavilion through a set of double doors, into a long room that ran off to either side of us. I knew we were in some famous space, and Jeremy was telling me all about it, but I wasn't listening. I was eyeing up the big man standing outside the main door, and the others I saw throughout the building. They weren't... guarding, exactly, but they were standing next to closed doors and Jeremy had to explain himself a few times as we made our way up the stairs. We reached a series of rooms on the upper floors, meeting-spaces that were being used as living-spaces, and finally entered what looked like some sort of board room. People were lounging around, one of them playing a guitar and someone else lying on the big table and reading a book. Where had Jeremy brought me?

"New arrival," he announced to the room in general. "She's immune." A few of the people looked up at that, but no one spoke. Then, the woman who was lying on the table reading the book sat up slowly.

"Did you test her?" she asked. Jeremy looked uncomfortable. Test?

"Not yet," said Jeremy. "I was just told to bring her up here." I gathered from this exchange that Jeremy was not in any way important amongst these people. I stepped forward.

"What is this place?" I asked. The woman looked around, waiting for someone to answer. When no one did, she sat up with a sigh.

"This is a survivor camp," she said. "We set it up so that other people who are immune have a place to rally. Other refugees have started to trickle in, but we discourage them staying. If you want to stay here, you'll have to get tested." She turned to Jeremy. "Take her down to the back office, Jonty is in front of the right door, in case you get lost." Jeremy nodded nervously and took my arm, steering me from the room.

"Wait! I'm- I'm looking for someone," I said, before he could drag me away. "He's immune, he came in about six days ago."

The woman looked bored.

"Who?"

"Oh Sehun. Um... a Korean man, about six-foot-tall, very slim, he has a scar on his cheek..." I racked my brains for any other distinguishing features. "Probably speaks only a bit of English, but really articulate about it... um, he's good looking?" That was an understatement.

"He's here," said the woman, but she looked wary. "Are you friends?"

"I came here with his friends," I said, figuring it would be best not to lie in case anyone asked Sehun about me directly.

"Alright, well that's good, I suppose." she said. She still eyed me suspiciously. "He's been a bit agitated about seeing his friends."

I looked around the room, at the half-dozen people lounging in there and the other three on the balcony outside. None of them had so much as an eyebrow resemblance to Sehun, who I'd probably recognize if he was backlit in a dark room, so distinctive was his appearance.

"Where is he?"

The woman looked uncomfortable for the first time, but when she spoke it was defensive.

"We had to lock him up, for his own safety," she said. "He's downstairs, with the Infected."

'Jonty' turned out to be a rat-faced young man with a whispy 'tache and a very loud voice. I assumed he'd been chosen to guard whatever was beyond that door because he could probably raise the alarm quickly. I was still shaken by what the woman upstairs had said, that Sehun was with the Infected, apparently locked in there. Jeremy didn't know anything, and the woman wouldn't answer me, she just went right back to reading her book.

Jonty shrugged when Jeremy told him I was immune and opened the door for me, but neither of them came inside. Instead, they stood in the doorway while I went in. The office was massive and had clearly belonged to someone important. It was lined with wood, and there was a big desk at one end. A man – Infected, to judge from the pallid colour of his skin - was tied to a chair behind the desk, seemingly asleep. There was a chaise along the wall under the window and on it, also asleep, was Sehun.

"Sehun?"

His eyebrows twitched and a small crease appeared between them. He looked like a effigy, lying flat out on the chaise in a thick-knit sweater and black jeans. He wasn't wearing any shoes. Before I could call him again, or shake him awake, Jonty spoke up behind me.

"You need to touch the Infected," he said in his booming, nasal voice. That woke up Sehun, but he just looked around at us and sighed without saying anything. I was staring at him and had momentarily forgotten the Infected. What Jonty said snapped me back to the room, though.

"What?"

"If you're immune, you need to prove it. If you're not immune, you'll get Infected and we'll have to shut the door. So, get on with it, or go join the camp with the other normals." I gaped at him.

"WHAT? I'm not touching that," I said, pointing at the Infected.

"Aren't you Immune?" Jonty. Jeremy was frowning at me, looking uncomfortable.

"Yes," I said, knowing that I was and had already been touched by Infected. Still... it was bizarre. To have to prove myself to these people felt wrong. I wondered if anyone had failed that test, and what had happened to them. I looked over at the Infected lying on the table. Was this how he had become like he was? "Who is he?"

Jonty shrugged. "He came in with him." He nodded towards Sehun, who had closed his eyes again. He was clearly awake, and still frowning. He came with Sehun? I whipped around and stepped closer to the Infected. Closer up, I could see that he was a Korean man, probably about thirty-five. Oh no.

"Sungjin?" I said, softly. The Infected didn't move, but he did stir when I stopped next to the desk. He raised his head weakly and turned filmy eyes on me.

"His name is Sungjin," said a small voice behind me. "You know his name?" I turned around to find Sehun sitting up, looking at me curiously. With a last glance at the Infected, I walked over to Sehun. I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this place, so I switched to Korean.

I introduced myself. "I came here with Chanyeol and Jongin," I told Sehun. He stood up quickly.

"Where?" he looked all around the room and then outside, beyond the other two.

"They're not here," I said. "They're outside." Sehun made to leave, but Jonty stood in his way.

"It's not dinner yet, you're not allowed out," said Jonty. Sehun tried to push past him but Jonty must be stronger than he looked because he didn't move. I stepped towards them.

"What's the problem?" I asked Jonty. "Why can't he leave?"

"He's already tried to escape three times," he told me, nodding at Sehun.

"Escape? Why is that an issue? What's he done? Why are you holding him prisoner?"

Jeremy looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"None of the immune leave the compound unless it's on official business," he said. "He tried to leave a few times, so we had to close him in here." That sick feeling that I had before was starting to intensify. They were keeping him here? In a room with an Infected? An Infected who had been his friend and manager? What even was this place? Who were these people? I suddenly felt like I had to get back to Chanyeol and Kai. Were they safe here?

I wanted to speak to Sehun but I was worried about Jonty.

"I'll touch the body," I told Jonty. "But you have to let me take him with me when I go." Jonty shrugged.

"Not my call, love." I turned and took Sehun's arm, leading him back to the desk at the other end of the room. Speaking in Korean in a low voice, I asked him what was happening. I pretended that I was being nervous about touching the Infected while he relayed the truth to me in a whisper.

"I came here with Sungjin-hyung because I can't get sick. And I wanted to meet others who couldn't get sick, because I thought it was going to be safe. The people here got sick and the other people," he pointed upstairs, "they killed them. We tried to leave, to go back to Jonginah, but they stopped us and put us in here. We left again but they stopped Sungjin-hyung outside the wall. Then..." He gestured towards Sungjin. "when I wouldn't come back, they made him sick. Punishment."

I was glad I was facing away from the door. I felt sick. Sehun was looking at his manager with pity and anger and such deep sadness.

"I will get you out of here, Sehun." I touched his arm briefly, and he gave me a tiny smile that was one part hope and three parts defeat. They had threatened Sehun with making his manager sick, and then did it when he wouldn't listen to them. This was horrifying. This place was horrifying. I had to get back to Chanyeol and Kai and tell them what Sehun was going through. I knew I wasn't getting out of this room without touching Sungjin, and I didn't want to but I reached out and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. He was clammy. I suddenly realized that I wanted to put him out of his misery. I still had my baseball bat, tucked into the strap of my backpack, but that was too inelegant. I turned to Sehun.

"I will get you out of here. But I want to help him," I said, gesturing to Sungjin. I picked up a letter opener from the desk and held it to Sungjin's neck.

"No!" Jonty shouted from behind me, finally realizing what I was doing. Sehun nodded sadly and I drove the letter opener into Sungjin's neck.


	16. Day 8, Lords camp

Jeremy trailed me outside, as I stormed down through the seating and took off across the grass.

"Please wait," he called, and then he ran after me and spun me around to face him. One look at his face was enough to tell me that he knew what Sehun had been through. I couldn't bear to leave him up there, in that room with his dead manager. He looked so lost when Jonty dragged me out, and when I refused to go back upstairs and he threatened to lock me in there too, I barged past him. I needed to get to Chaneyol and Kai. We needed to figure out a way to get Sehun out of there. And then we all had to go.

"What the fuck, Jeremy?"

"He broke out of the camp-"

"So what?! Who cares if he broke out! He's entitled to leave if he wants to!"

"That's-" Jeremy looked around and lowered his voice, stepping closer to me. "That's not how we do things here. It was necessary to contain him. He's immune, do you not see how important that is? Now please keep your voice down, they're liable to lock you in there with him after what you did."

So that's what this was about. Immunity. I couldn't understand a word he was saying. My brilliant friend, my oldest friend, the man I trusted more than any blood relative, was standing in front of me and telling me to calm down after he was complicit in the effective murder of an innocent man. Sungjin had died so that these people – whoever they were – could punish Sehun for daring to leave.

"So, this place is gathering immune people. Why?"

"Not everyone here is immune-"

"I gathered that. You're not, are you?"

"No," he said, bitterly. "But Evelyn thinks that if we can get everyone who's immune together, then any scientists who survived this might be able to work out a vaccine for the rest. But we need more people."

"Evelyn is the woman upstairs?" I asked, looking up at the Pavilion. In the afternoon glare, I couldn't see through the windows.

"Yes, she was one of the first to come here. She brought your friend, actually."

The woman who told Sungjin about the camp, I realized. This was her. I turned back to face the camp.

"I need to go find Chanyeol and Kai," I said. Jeremy tried to grab my hand, but I threw him off. "Don't touch me. This place is a nightmare. Whatever she's trying to do here, whatever good it might do, nothing justifies what she's done to Sungjin and Sehun, Jeremy. Nothing." Suddenly something occurred to me. The students at Russell Square had heard about his place. The universities near St Pancras. Jeremy had been holed up in university buildings. "You work on genetics research," I said. His face confirmed my suspicion. "You came here early on in the outbreak. She went looking for scientists, didn't she?"

"She has a great idea-"

"She's imprisoned Sehun here against his will," I said firmly, and walked away. Thankfully, he didn't follow me.


	17. Day 8, Lords camp, still

I found Chanyeol and Kai lounging on the floor of a family-sized camping tent near the edge of the field. They were chatting in low voices, and when I saw them, I felt the weight of what I'd seen at the Pavilion settle on me and I needed comfort. I climbed into the tent. I needed to tell them about Sehun and what was going on here. We needed to work out a plan to get Sehun out of that locked room and then get out all of us out of this fucked-up place. But for a few minutes, I just wanted to lie down.

I sat down heavily facing them. Chanyeol reached out for my hand and I took it. Then Kai did the same, and I took his hand too, so we were sitting in a little joined semi-circle. I couldn't help smiling; they had this effect on me.

"I found Sehun," I said. Chanyeol sat up quickly and made to stand. I hushed him, motioning for him to stay put. "He's here but they've locked him up." I relayed what had happened up at the Pavilion. When I got to the part about Sungjin, Kai put his head in his hands and hunched over his crossed legs. Chanyeol put his hand on his shoulder and urged me to continue.

"I wonder if I can get him out," I said, talking as I was thinking.

"How?"

"We can get him out through the window..." I said. That was as far as I got. I was starting to develop an inflated sense of my own abilities. I mean, Sehun had been locked up there for days and hadn't been able to get out. But had he really been trying, since they had infected Sungjin? But there was a variable now: he had people on the outside. "It won't be easy I think this place locks down pretty hard if those fences are anything to go by. We'll need to keep them busy." I wouldn't be able to go with Kai and Chanyeol. But they might be able to get over the fence. They were agile and fit; they were light on their feet for a living. I was barely fit enough to walk from Embankment to St Pancras. No, I had something else to do.

"I can distract them while you sneak around the building to where the window is. I'll get them to lock me in there with Sehun and warn him about what's happening." I looked out of the tent. There was no one nearby, but I was still keeping my voice low. I was glad to see that they had pitched up at the edge of the camp. There was a fire pit in the middle of this place, but the outside of the field would be dark come nightfall. I hated the idea of leaving Sehun in there alone until then, but it was the only way.

"When everyone has gone to sleep, we'll go," I said. They nodded. "Okay, let's get something to eat then."

There were probably a hundred and fifty survivors in the camp, living on the field in tents scavenged from camping shops and in event marquees and gazebos that Lords had lying around for events. Jeremy was standing nearby and looking at me sadly when I emerged from the tent and, even though I was disgusted by him right now, he was my only source of information. He told me that there were six immunes including Sehun living in the Pavilion. This division into hierarchy was everything that was wrong with this place, and the more I heard about it the less I felt like relaying to Chanyeol and Kai. Since hearing that Sehun was locked up and Sungjin was dead, Kai had become listless, and Chanyeol was getting more agitated by the minute. I'd left them in the tent and went to find food myself in case one of them got into a fight. I told Chanyeol to go with Kai if he had to use the bathroom, just in case.

Jeremy led me to the big marquee in the center of the field. I hoped there were no members of the Marylebone Cricket Club amongst the survivors; if they hadn't died from the infection, they might have had a coronary over what was happening to their precious pitch. The firepit outside was clearly some bizarre attempt to create a gathering place, and I couldn't see how it would be useful since it was early September and still quite warm. But it was only five o' clock and people were already drifting towards the lawn recliners that were set out around it, so maybe I had underestimated how desperate these people were for community.

"Evelyn set up this mess area," he said, as if he might be able to endear that woman to me if I thought she was doing good. Six gas barbeques had been set up under gazebos outside of the marquee, inside which there were long tables. I didn't know what they were planning to do when they ran out of fresh food to cook, but the barbeques were being used to cook masses of root vegetables and boil tubs of water, into which I assumed some of those bags of dry pasta by the marquee wall would be dumped. The trestle tables closest to the barbeques were a workstation for six people who were chopping vegetables. The whole operation reminded me of a country fair I'd been forced to attend just after my mother got married. Lots of grim-faced older men and women directing scared-looking teenagers who had been pressganged into helping.

"Who are these people?" I asked. They didn't look like professional chefs.

"Everyone on the camp is on a rota to help out for at least one mealtime every few days," said Jeremy. "When we started getting more people, Evelyn organized everyone into work parties, so we all have enough to eat. It's been five days now, and everything seems to be working well. Evelyn used to direct big fieldwork projects-"

"I don't care, please stop talking about her," I said, through gritted teeth. Every single time Jeremy said her name, he sounded less like my old friend and more like some sycophantic cultist. Whoever this woman was or had been, she had clearly hoodwinked him into thinking she was something. These other people too, it seemed.

"What if people don't want to work?" I asked suddenly. Jeremy shrugged.

"If they're not immune, they can leave," he said. "This is the best chance they have of survival." He sounded flippant, like it should be obvious. I hated this place, down to the root vegetables on that barbeque, but I was starting to get hungry. Just a few more hours, I told myself. I had to make an effort not to think about Sehun, and how lost he looked in that room by himself when I left. He was only a couple of months younger than Kai, but he seemed so much younger in person. I hoped he could hold on until we came for him later. I picked up three empty cartons from a pile that someone had presumably taken from one of the catering vans around the cricket ground and filled them with food. Jeremy offered to help, and I had to let him because I couldn't carry three cartons and three bottles of water by myself. He walked me back to the tent.

"Look," he said, glancing past me into the dark interior. I could see Kai lying on his side, and Chanyeol sitting in front of him, talking quietly. Chanyeol looked up when he heard us, but his expression turned cold when he saw Jeremy.

"What?" I asked.

"Look, I have a lot more space in my tent," said Jeremy. "You don't know these guys. I know you and-" here he forgot Chanyeol's name "-the tall one are close, but why don't you come over to mine for a few hours at least. We can talk." He wanted me to stay with him.

I guessed that Jeremy must be lonely here. He was some sort of cog in the machinery of the whole sordid affair. Given his work as a geneticist, he'd been scouted or targeted by Evelyn and her people. But he was down here on the field while they lived in the Pavilion. He seemed sad and was looking at me with a kind of quiet desperation. I took the food from him and passed it inside.

"Jeremy, why didn't you call me?" I'd been afraid of asking this since I saw that he was alive. I'd asked it of myself a few times in those first few days, but my overwhelming conclusion had been that Jeremy was probably dead. Now I knew he wasn't, and I was at a loss as to why he – my oldest friend, who was now so desperate to see me – hadn't called me during the outbreak. I had definitely tried to call him. "Why didn't you call my office or my mobile?"

"I... didn't I?"

"No," I said, watching him lie unconvincingly, "you didn't. Why?"

Jeremy looked at his feet and at the tent, anywhere but at me. I grabbed his shoulder, feeling my anger rise, and forced him to look straight at me, willing myself to see what I used to see in him. I'd always thought Jeremy was good looking. He had thick brown hair and soulful hazel eyes that flashed when he talked about science. When we were teenagers, I would miss whole classes just looking at his side profile. At some point – when he left for university, when I failed out of mine – I stopped seeing him that way. Our friendship matured so that he was more like family as we got older. We spent Christmases together. He brought me groceries when I was sick. He didn't go to see his parents last year during the lockdown because he wanted to still be able to see me. I paid for his dinner when he was doing his doctorate and had barely enough money to live on. But he didn't call me, on the worst of all days. And he couldn't answer me as to why. At some point, I must have stopped being a priority to him. And he had a new cause now. When he still hadn't answered me after nearly half a minute passed, I shook my head.

"Please, just leave," I said. I didn't want to look at him anymore. Besides, it was going to get dark soon and I needed Jeremy to be away from here so we could sneak out.

"I assumed you were dead," he said quietly. "I didn't want it confirmed, if you didn't answer your phone. You never came to find me either-"

"I don't know where you work," I said quickly. "You never brought me to your office. I wasn't even sure which university it was you were at now. But you know where my building is. You knew exactly where I was, and you never came to find me."

Chanyeol climbed out of the tent.

"I need to use the bathroom," he said to me in Korean, then looked at Jeremy. "Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," I said. "Jeremy is leaving."

Jeremy didn't speak any Korean, and clearly thought we were having some sort of conference about him, and when he heard his name his expression turned stony.

"You should go up to the Pavilion," he said. "Evelyn wants all of the Immune together, in case something happens."

I rolled my eyes so hard my vision spun. "Fuck Evelyn," I said. "I'll go up there if I want to. Now please, Jeremy, just go." He looked like he was going to argue, but Chanyeol hadn't moved from beside me, and Kai chose that moment to join us at the door. Kai and Chanyeol were at least a good four inches taller than him, I realized. Jeremy just sighed and muttered to himself, and then he stalked off in the direction of the Pavilion. We watched him go.

"He could be trouble," I said to them in a low voice. "I can manage him though."

We ate, but not much. Chargrilled butternut squash covered in paprika with a side of red-sauce pasta was not an ideal meal. I couldn't help but think that I had made more convincing dinners with fewer resources back during my brief stint as a student. I supposed that some of the people who lived around Lords, who probably sought refuge here when it started to operate as a survivor camp, were also the type of people for whom a kitchen in their apartment was a 'feature' rather than a necessity.

I didn't dare lie down in case I fell asleep, but Chanyeol did as soon as he'd eaten as much as he could stomach of the bland food. As soon as he stretched himself out along the whole length of the tent, he closed his eyes and seemed to be asleep in minutes. Kai lay down too, but he didn't sleep. Instead, he watched me sketch out a plan of the Lords Pavilion in my notebook, as best I could from memory.

"Will you be safe?" he asked me, when I'd stopped drawing and started writing out lists of things that could go wrong.

"I'm immune," I said, and looked up at him. "I'm worried about you and Chanyeol. If you're caught..." I didn't finish, but I didn't have to. Evelyn had Sunjin infected out of spite. If she did that to Kai or Chanyeol, it might break me and Sehun both.

"Do you want to sleep?" he asked. I shook my head.

"I don't want to risk it." I turned the plan around to show to him. "I'll explain this again before we leave, but you get what you have to do, don't you?" I pointed to the room where I was sure Sehun was. "Just get to here. Bring your pool cue. And cover your faces, okay? Assume we're going to leave immediately."

"Where will we go?" he asked. I hadn't thought about getting further than the street. What if we got split up? The whole city was dangerous, I knew. I had a vague idea, though. That sportscar we had seen a few days ago had come from somewhere. It had enough petrol in it to drive. How many other cars were lying around the city, ready to drive? The only thing we needed were keys.

"There's a car park back here somewhere, through a gate I think." I drew an arrow at the back of the Pavilion. "We'll make for here and find a car, and we'll drive. We'll go back to the St Pancras apartment. Okay?" In the dim light of the camping lamp, I saw Kai's eyes brighten at the mention of the apartment. It was a safe space for him, and increasingly becoming a rose-tinted memory of peace for me. "Try get some sleep," I said. "I'll wake you when it's time."

Kai nodded, and though he closed his eyes, I don't think he slept. A couple of hours later, when the noise in the camp had died down and it was pitch dark out, I turned off the camping light and gently shook them awake. "Let's go."


	18. The Break Out

I got through the gap in the fence by the Pavilion easily enough; the only person there was Jonty and he didn't even say anything as I strode past him and up to the door. I had no time to think about what I was about to do, because I knew that Chanyeol and Kai were waiting for my signal to climb the fence in the darkness off to the right. The big man at the door recognized me and was happy to let me pass, but when I told him I wanted to see Sehun, and he directed me to Evelyn and the others upstairs, I politely told him to get fucked. As I made for the door at the opposite end of the long room to the one I would need to take to go upstairs, he grabbed me from behind, and I screamed. That was the signal. Honestly, I thought it was going to take me longer.

Jonty ran in from the fence, and Jeremy appeared from the direction of the room Sehun was in.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, when he saw me. I stamped heavily on the instep of the man holding me and he let go with a howl.

"I want to see Sehun," I demanded. Jeremy glanced nervously towards the door to upstairs. I hoped Chanyeol and Kai were over the fence by now.

"Evelyn-"

"Watch me give a fuck, Jeremy. I want to see Sehun. He's on his own in there." I made to move past him, but Jeremy caught my arm and held it.

"You can't," he said.

"Because Evelyn said so? She can't keep him here, Jeremy. This is wrong." I tried to shrug out of his grip, but he held me fast. "Let go."

"There's no point-"

"Why not? What if I try to leave too? Is she going to lock me up?"

"Yes!" Jeremy hissed at me. "Look, you don't understand what's going on here."

"I'm immune. She can't hurt me, Jeremy. She can't hurt Sehun. What could she do?"

Then I remembered the guns. I remembered the shots I heard last night. I remembered Sungjin, and I went cold. She couldn't hurt me, but she could hurt Chanyeol or Kai. Or Jeremy.

"Look, can you just calm down-" Jeremy started, but he was interrupted.

"He's not in there anymore," said Evelyn, who emerged from the direction Jeremy had come in. "He was being difficult again, so I gave him a room somewhere else, away from the Infected. Can you talk to him? No one here speaks his language." I gaped at the woman. She carried herself with the air of someone who expected to be obeyed. I wondered who she had been before – a lifetime ago, eight days ago.

"You can't keep people here against their will," I said.

"No one else has a problem with our mission here, except you and your friend."

"Have you lost your mind!? The world has gone to shit, there's nowhere to develop a vaccine, let alone people to distribute it to." Jeremy had let go of me by now and I had to stop myself from rushing Evelyn. Then, something flitted across her face. A look, a flicker of something. "What is it?" I asked. "What aren't you telling these people?" Evelyn's eyes narrowed.

"What?"

"What are you developing- no, who are you developing this vaccine for? Who even are you?" It suddenly seemed obvious. Who was this woman, who had taken it upon herself to locate immunes in the ruins of London, mere days after the outbreak? She was hiding something about this vaccine thing. What was it? Suddenly, something occurred to me and I didn't want to say it – because to say it would be to admit it, and it was horrifying. But I said it anyway. "Is London under quarantine?"

Evelyn didn't answer me, but she didn't need to. Her expression flickered just a bit, her mouth pursed ever-so-slightly, and I knew I had it right. She was under orders or had come from outside to find immunes to take out of Infected London. This meant... fuck, this meant that the world was still turning. I almost gasped from the shock of it, but I held it together long enough to say-

"Let me see Sungjin and then I'll have a word with Sehun for you." I needed to get to the room Sehun had been in. Chanyeol and Kai needed to know that there was a change of plan.

Evelyn came with me to the room I'd been in before. When she made to follow me, I asked her to stay back.

"I know it seems weird, but I'd like to say goodbye... alone," I said. She didn't know that I'd never met Sungjin; all she knew was that I knew Sehun. It was clear that she had no idea who Sehun was in his normal life, so I put on an upset face and she shrugged like it didn't matter and closed the door behind me.

For decency sake, I did approach Sungjin, who was still lying in his own blood, face-down on the desk.

"I'm sorry," I said. Someone had closed his eyes for him; Sehun, probably. I spared a moment to really look at Sungjin and memorize his face. I'd killed a lot of Infected the last few days, but his was the first mercy-killing. I wanted to remember him.

After a moment, I went over to the big window behind the chaise and checked the latches, then walked back to the desk and found some clean (non-blood-soaked) paper and scrawled a quick message to Chaneyol and Kai, and when I thought I could see their outline below, I dropped it through the open window.

Sehun isn't here," I'd written (in Korean, in case anyone else found it). Go to the road behind this building, over the wall. Wait for me. Please. Go.

I hoped that was enough. All I cared about right now was getting them out of the camp and away from any kind of firing line. They were useless to me in a fight because they weren't immune. Evelyn could have them Infected or shot. A plan was half-formed in my head. It wasn't a good plan, but it might be enough to get us out. I just needed to get to Sehun. With a last look at Sungjin, I left the office.

Sehun was lying down on the floor when I was let into the room they'd locked him in. He sat up quickly when I came in, and I shut the door in Evelyn's face, locking it behind me. She made some noise of protest, but I ignored her. The room was dimly lit by a candle on the floor, and Sehun was eyeing me warily.

"You're back," he said.

"Yes." I rushed forward and crouched down next to him. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Sehun shook his head. He seemed suspicious.

"You said you were with Jongin-ah and Chanyeollie-hyung. Where are they?"

"They're outside," I whispered. "I'm here to break you out. Are you ready to go?"

Sehun didn't move. He looked behind me, to the door beyond which Evelyn and Jeremy were waiting. I stood up and walked to the little window. There was a two-story drop below us; I didn't think I'd be able to survive it and there was no way I was attempting some ridiculous drainpipe climb. If there even was a drainpipe that I could see, but then I couldn't see anything in the dark. No, if we were going to get out of here, we were going out the front door. My conscience and better judgement were screaming at me over what I was planning to do, but there was no other way.

"Let's go," I said, walking towards the door. Sehun still hadn't moved. He didn't even have any shoes on. "Where are your shoes?" He glanced at the floor beside the door and I saw a pair of ...well, sneakers. Even in the flickering light of the candle, though, I could see that these were the kind of sneakers that designers hand-stitched themselves. These men and their ridiculously expensive clothes. I picked up the sneakers and threw them at Sehun. One of them hit him in the shoulder. He blinked. "Put these on," I said.

"Where are we going?" he asked, but at least he started moving, reaching out to pick up the sneaker that had fallen beside him. He considered it for a second and then began to wrestle it onto his foot. I walked back to him.

"We're going out the front door, but we need some insurance. There's a man out there with brown hair – Jeremy. I need you to grab him if you can. He's shorter than you, and he's not strong. You should be able to pin his arms. Can you do that?" I was taking a ridiculous gamble here. I was basing everything I knew about Sehun's ability to handle himself in a fight on a single comedic scene in a variety show he'd done once. Sehun put on his other shoe and climbed to his feet. "Can you do it?" I asked him again. He nodded.

Standing up, he towered over me in the dark. When we had met earlier, down in that room in the daylight, he had seemed defeated and lost. Here, backlit by the candle and determination squaring his broad shoulders, he looked... intimidating. Kai was tall but he was all smiles and softness. Chanyeol was broader than Sehun and Kai. He was bigger, a little bit taller, but he carried himself with all the approachableness of a friendly Labrador. Sehun, readying himself to pick a fight, was genuinely scary. That was what we needed right now. I patted him gingerly on the bicep and turned towards the door.


	19. Standoff

Evelyn wasn't expecting us to burst through the door, and by the time she turned to face us, Sehun already had Jeremy in a headlock. Jeremy squirmed a bit, but Sehun was taller and fitter than he was.

"What are you planning on doing now?" asked Evelyn, trying to sound bored but there was a note of wariness to her voice.

"We're leaving," I said.

"Gary! Anyone! Come here now!" Evelyn shouted, her voice carrying in the darkness to echo through the empty corridors and rooms around us. Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the big man from the door – Gary, probably – appeared with Jonty.

"Deal with this," Evelyn instructed them, but I raised my hand.

"Get out of our way, or Sehun snaps Jeremy's neck," I said. I hoped I sounded like I meant it. I was angry at Jeremy, but I was taking a risk here. I wouldn't be able to kill Jeremy if it came to it. 

"You're bluffing," said Evelyn.

"No," Sehun spoke up suddenly. "No bluff." His elbow tightened around Jeremy's windpipe. In the light from the candle in the hallway, he looked demonic. Some ridiculous part of my brain that wasn't paying attention to the situation at hand appreciated how good he looked, dark eyes and pale skin, hair askew. He looked incredible. He was staring at Evelyn with unblinking intensity, and I went cold. I wasn't prepared to kill my friend but Sehun, it seemed, had had enough of being told what to do. I was a bit scared for Jeremy. Evelyn must have seen what I saw in Sehun's eyes because she put out a hand to stop the other two from moving forward.

"So what?" Evelyn said. "So, what if you kill him? Where are you going to go?"

"Anywhere else," I said. "But you need Jeremy. You scouted him for his genetics research. You knew where to go, and you know you need him for your vaccine. So, let us pass and you'll get him back safe. Stop us, and I can't be responsible for what Sehun does."

Jeremy gasped my name, but I didn't look at him. I couldn't; I would lose my nerve if I did. Then, I noticed that Gary was moving towards us slowly. It was now or never.

"Sehun-ssi," I said, switching to Korean. "Let's go." As soon as I said it, I threw the candle, mostly hot liquid wax in its little jar, at the wall beside Gary, and Sehun kicked Jeremy forward so he ran headlong into Jonty and Evelyn, who had to leap aside to keep from tumbling down the stairs. The candle smashed by the time Sehun and I had reached the top of the stairs, sprinting. Jeremy was face-down on the floor, groaning, and Evelyn screeched as we passed her, but we kept running, down the stairs and through the long room. We saw the front door, and we almost made it. It was just there. Then, a man in a Lords groundskeeper high-vis marched through the door. He was pushing Chanyeol in front of him, arm twisted behind his back.

We stumbled to a halt. The groundskeeper didn't seem to notice us and addressed Evelyn who appeared in the doorway behind us, panting.

"Caught this one outside the fence," he said. "Not one of yours is it?"

"Block the door," Evelyn shouted, ignoring him. The groundskeeper shrugged, letting go of Chanyeol and pushing him towards us.

"Hyung," said Sehun. He stepped forward and Chanyeol wrapped his arms around him.

"Gwaenchana?" [are you okay?] he asked, and Sehun nodded.

"What are you doing here you giant moron?" I hissed at him. He glared at me, but held out his hand to me anyway, and I took it, holding it tight. I was scared now. I wouldn't have hurt Jeremy, but I had no doubt that Evelyn would hurt Chanyeol.

"Get back upstairs," said Evelyn, and I turned to face her.

"No."

"I will have your friend shot," she said, motioning towards Chanyeol. "Or Infected. Now do as I say."

Sehun made to run at her, but Chanyeol held him back. He'd seen what I had seen; Evelyn was holding a gun. It was facing the floor now, but she could lift it quick enough. She was certainly mad enough. I had no idea if she knew how to use it, but she didn't need good aim to hit Sehun at point-blank range.

I was starting to smell smoke and wondered if my candle had hit one of the curtains upstairs or if maybe the stress of what was happening now was giving me a brain hemorrhage. I was about to say something, when a smashing noise cut through the room. A stick – no, was that a fence post? – lay smoldering on the floor. It had probably been on fire, but when it hit the window and burst through it had burned itself out. We all stared at it for a second, when another burning fencepost sailed through the broken sash window. This one, definitely on fire, caught the curtains on the way in, and hit a stack of chairs in the corner, igniting their felt covers.

The shriek that cut through the air didn't come from us, or from Evelyn. It came from the groundskeeper. He rushed over to the fire in the corner, taking off his jacket as he ran and tried to smother the flames on the chairs. He forgot about the curtain, and flames began to curl upwards towards the molded plasterwork that ran between the upper and lower windows. It was a damn shame but right now I couldn't give a fuck about the Home of English Cricket and dragged Chaneyol towards the unguarded door. He pushed Sehun ahead of us and yanked it open. I could see Kai outside, standing a few steps below us in the darkness, brandishing a fencepost that was burning on one end. He whooped when he saw us and threw the fencepost after the others, looking like he was having the time of his life. I thought we were out. I thought we were safe. Then a shot cut through the night and Chanyeol dropped to the ground next to me.


	20. Escape

I tripped on a step and barreled into Sehun's back. He stumbled and turned, catching me. It was nearly pitch-black outside, but somehow, he saw Chanyeol on the ground.

"Hyung!" he shouted. Kai sprinted over, and I watched as they lifted Chanyeol between them. I could barely see. I stepped forward, not wanting to know what I would find, not really. I reached out and touched Chanyeol's face, and when I heard him hiss in pain and swear loudly, I almost threw my arms around him. I stopped myself, though, because my hand came away wet. He was on his feet now, but he was unsteady. I reached up again.

"Your face..." I said. "What...?"

"My ear," he said. "Shit."

His ear. One of his giant stick-out ridiculous ears that made him look like some sort of elf prince, had been shot. I went cold. That bullet had nearly killed him.

"We need to go," I said. "Back the way we came in, okay? Now. Let's go."

Before we could even turn, another shot rang out, booming around the cricket ground.

"Stop!" I heard Evelyn scream, and then the gun fired again and Chanyeol – Chanyeol, again – screamed, pitching forward so I had to hold him up. But when I put my hand on his waist to hold him up, he howled again, and I felt a hot stickiness seeping through the soft cotton of his hoodie. 

"Oh fuck," I said. "Kai, Sehun, please go," I said, and I suddenly didn't care if I was hurting him or not – I grabbed Chanyeol around the waist and pulled him down the stairs with me. I heard a click and a loud 'fuck!' from behind me as Evelyn ran out of bullets and thanked whatever deities might be listening for that mercy. We kept running, around the outside of the field.

Chanyeol was moaning, but he was conscious.

"How did you get shot twice?!" I hissed angrily as I half-dragged him along with me. I was terrified, rather than angry. I had basic first-aid training, but I couldn't help him with a gunshot wound. I think he was in shock, because he wasn't saying anything. Sehun was on his other side, holding him up carefully around the waist, Chanyeol's arm slung over his broad shoulders. He was muttering quietly at him too. Kai was ahead of us, his pool cue in one hand and Chanyeol's sword in the other. He hadn't said anything, just silently took charge of our escape. I was desperately grateful to him right then.

As we came up on the gate to the outside, the same old man who had relieved Jeremy earlier was standing there, lit by the flickering light of a chimenea. He would have heard the gunshots, and he was ready for something. He didn't look surprised to see us in any case and was carrying a cricket bat like he knew how to damage someone with it. He stepped forward.

"Now just-"

But before he could go any further, Kai had walked straight up to him and swung the pool cue at the old man's head. Sehun and I stopped, Chanyeol between us whimpering quietly. The cue didn't hit him, as the old man ducked out of the way just in time. I think Kai had pulled his swing on purpose and was just planning to scare him. The old man lashed out with the cricket bat, but he was no match for a dancer like Kai, who seemed to bend around the bat, and out of its reach.

"You little shit," the man spat. Kai whipped the pool cue through the air again, and this time it connected with the old man's wrist. A crack sounded, and he dropped the cricket bat, howling.

"Move," said Kai, his voice a low rumble, and there was real power behind the word. When we fought our way through Infected London, he was conservative in his movements, sparing himself from any real danger. But he wasn't fighting an Infected, here. This man was just in our way, and Kai, I realized, was angry. He was livid. I had never seen him like this even in a music video. He was squared up to the old man, shoulders set. Side on, I could just see his face in the flickering light from the fire, and his dark eyes flashed dangerously, unblinking. He had the sword and the pool cue raised, and his hands were covered in dirt. There was some of what I assumed was Chanyeol's blood smeared on his forehead. He raised the sword. I thought then that he would definitely use it.

"I can't let you go," said the old man, but there was little conviction in his voice. He was already backing towards the gate.

"Just leave then," I said. "He will hurt you if you stay. Just go."

The old man started, like he'd forgotten I was there. Kai stepped towards him and he flinched back.

"Go," Kai growled, and the old man did. He sprinted off in the direction of the Pavilion, leaving us with the locked gate. I could hear shouts from that direction.

"We have to move," I said, and Kai nodded, stepping up to the gate. He handed me the pool cue and stood in front of the bike lock that held the gate shut, the sword grasped in both hands, legs set to balance himself as he raised the sword above his head. It probably wouldn't take the drama he was putting into it to break the lock apart, but I wasn't about to stop him. He looked glorious, lit from the side by the flickering fire. He took a deep breath and swung down with all his might, and the lock crunched under the weight of the sword. The gate swung inwards.

"Are you okay? We need to move," I said to Chanyeol. I could see his face now, sprayed with blood from his ear on one side and twisted in pain. He was standing on his own feet, though, and he wasn't leaning on me anymore. His arm around Sehun seemed to be more for comfort than support.

"Let's go," he said, pressing his hand into his side, and I didn't argue. We didn't have time, and we didn't have any options anyway. So, we ran, out the gate, and into the dark, Infected-infested streets.


	21. Day 9, early hours

It bothered me afterwards how quickly we got back to St Pancras from Lords in the early hours of that morning. Something must have been lodged in my brain when we left a couple of days beforehand about the importance of not breaking the law. The whole city had collapsed into chaos, and it didn't even occur to me then to take one of the hundreds of cars we passed on the road. I reasoned to myself, as I watched Sehun drag an infected corpse from the front of a black cab in the dark outside Lords that I had still not been 100% convinced of my own immunity back then. Sehun made to get behind the wheel, but I stopped him.

"I'll drive," I said. "You'll get lost." He blinked at me for a second or so, then just shrugged and went to open the rear door which, of course, wouldn't open. I stepped around him and climbed into the driver's seat, turning on the engine and finding the door release button. Kai helped Chanyeol into the back and then he and Sehun climbed in with him. The glass division between us felt prescient, and I hated it.

The streets of London were quiet, relatively speaking. There were corpses all over the road, so it was slow going. I supposed that the Infected were still – technically – alive, so their bodies would probably collapse from exhaustion from time to time. We saw a few walking Infected but not as many as we had seen the day before. I didn't want to think about how some of the bodies I couldn't avoid on the road might be still living. I navigated my way back to Marylebone Road by pure instinct. It was strange to think that I had Jeremy to thank for that knowledge; he eschewed the tube on days we went to Lords, and we always walked back to my place. I didn't see anyone who looked like a survivor, but I kept the headlights off anyway. I didn't want to have to drive past someone who needed help. My capacity for sympathy with others right now was limited to the three men in the back of the cab.

I considered stopping outside of the hospital on Euston Road, but a hospital would probably be the worst place we could stop. The Infected couldn't get me sick, but they could swamp me. I hadn't seen Chanyeol's wound yet, but I was starting to worry that we would need more than whatever basic First Aid materials I might find at the apartment or in the hotel. I pulled off into the side streets and slowed, looking for a pharmacy. When I saw one that looked like it might have a dispensary, I stopped the car.

"Don't get out," I said into the backseat. The door was open, and there was only dead Infected inside. I found some antibiotics and painkillers, and a box of bandages and plasters, and some disinfectant on the shelves, sweeping them all into a little basket. That would be all the supplies I would know what to do with, I reasoned. Back in the car, Chaneyol was lying across the back seat, head and back propped against Kai, who was holding his shoulders.

"Are you okay?" I called back to him.

"It hurts. Really hurts," he said, but he sounded more angry than anguished. I took this as a good sign, and started the car, making for St Pancras. By the time we were through the door, up the stairs and back in the apartment – mercifully without incident – the sky was starting to lighten in the east. We were a couple of hours off dawn yet, though. I directed Chanyeol to the couch and dispatched Kai to find more candles, then went downstairs to find some flannels and a basin, fishing my torch out of my rucksack for light. Sehun sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch. He looked so tired I didn't dare ask him to do anything.

"Take off your hoodie and your shirt," I said, when I brought the full basin upstairs. Chanyeol blinked at me.

"What?"

I set the torch down on the coffee table and sat down next to it.

"Let me see your wound," I said.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked, warily. He pulled the hoodie off first, followed by the t-shirt. I tried not to notice how well-formed he was, in spite of the blood smeared across the lower bottom half of his torso. The muscles on his chest shone golden in the flickering candlelight that Kai brought from downstairs. My mouth went dry and I had to clear my throat.

"I've had first aid training, it's about as good as you're going to get right now. Show me," I said, scooting forward and focusing my attention on what I could see now was an angry-looking gash in his side. It wasn't long or deep, but it looked like it hurt like fuck.

"The bullet didn't hit you, it just glanced off you," I said, more to myself than to him. I couldn't hide the relief in my voice, though, and he smiled. I put a damp flannel to the wound, and he yelped, swearing at me in Korean.

"I understood that," I said dryly, and continued to clean the wound, first with water, then with disinfectant (more swearing), and then I patched it up with antiseptic bandages I'd taken from the pharmacy. I had a captive audience in Kai who sat next to me, handing me things as I asked for them. He asked occasional questions about what I was doing. Sehun was already asleep, his head resting against Chanyeol's knee. With his side clean, I moved to the couch and inspected Chanyeol's ear. Kai shone the torch for me to see, and both of us winced.

"What?" Chanyeol asked. "Is it okay? It hurts."

He must have been gritting his teeth, because of course it hurt: half his left ear was gone. I gave it the same treatment I did his side and used plasters to hold down dressing on his ear. Then, I wrapped his head in a long bandage around his head, pinning his ear.

"Can you get him some water?" I asked Kai, and he nodded, returning from the kitchen moments later with full glass. I fished the painkillers out of the basket from the pharmacy and handed more than a single dose to Chanyeol.

"Take these," I said. He eyed them for a second, and then took them, knocking them back with the water. "You should go to bed," I said, and stood up. He rose next to me, gently waking Sehun as he did.

"Let's go," he said to Sehun, who mumbled but stood too. I realized that I had taken Sehun's bed when I arrived.

"I'll stay here," I said, moving back towards the couch as the other three made their way to the stairs, Sehun with his arm around Chanyeol's waist but more like he was holding on to him than holding him up. They turned, confused.

"Why?" Chanyeol asked.

"The bed upstairs is Sehun's bed," I explained. Kai was the first to laugh.

"No one was sleeping in that bed," he said. "Oh Sehunnie can't sleep alone, so he was sharing with me." He pointed downstairs.

"Ah," I said, realizing now why the room had been spotlessly made-up, like a show home. "Well, goodnight then," I said, making for the stairs. I had resolved to sleep on the couch, but it still felt a bit odd to be leaving them. The last three days had been intense – the last week had been intense. Sleeping apart from them made me feel suddenly lonely.

Chanyeol huffed, and half-limped over to me. He was still shirtless, and it was hard not to stare at him. His abs were picked out in deep shadow and stark relief in the dipped light of my torch.

"Don't be an idiot," he muttered, grabbing my wrist and pulling meweakly after him, towards the stairs.


	22. Day 9, St Pancras

I woke up late in the morning nestled against the bare skin of a muscled chest, with powerful arms wrapped around me. Four powerful arms. It took me a second or two to realise that the chest and the arms belonged to different people, and I sat up very fast. Chanyeol, who had been lying behind me in the same position he was in before we fell into bed a few hours ago winced as my sudden movement jarred his gunshot wound. Sehun just blinked up at me and shut his eyes again.

"What are you doing here?" I hissed at Sehun as he nestled closer to Chanyeol in the space I'd left behind.

"Jongin-ah was snoring," he said. It was very warm in the room, so I peeled myself out of the sheets and stumbled to the door, keeping my eyes on the walls rather than look at the bed. I didn't think Sehun was wearing anything. Being around these men and their ridiculous bodies was driving me insane. If Chanyeol hadn't been so hopped up on painkillers when we went to bed last night, he could have taken care of my frustration. I would have, wound or not, but he was half-asleep by the time we got down the stairs. He had just enough energy to take off his shirt and pull me to him in the bed before he passed out.

I took a cold shower that sort of helped and wrapped myself in a robe. I wasn't about to put back on the blood-spattered jeans I'd been wearing the last few days, so I left the flat and rooted around the apartments around us for something clean to wear. I found a t-shirt and a green jumpsuit in what seemed like a woman's apartment across the hall. The jumpsuit still had the tags on, and it was a bit big for me. The owner had probably meant to return it, because it was sitting inside the door, neatly folded with a receipt tucked into the pocket. I tried not to think too hard about her as I dug around her apartment for other things I could use. She had some expensive moisturisers, and I used them all, lamenting at the state of my skin after so long without a hot shower.

I brought an unopened box of cereal and a bag of Doritos back with me, topping up the pile of food on the work surface in the kitchen. Kai was in there already, in full flannel pyjamas this time and eating granola. Sehun stumbled out of Chanyeol's room a few minutes later.

"Coffee," he said, and started to tear apart the pile of food.

"Sit down," I told him. "I'll make you some."

"Thank you noona," he said in a singsong voice punctuated by a yawn and installed himself expectantly on one of the stools. He was still shirtless, but at least he'd put some sweatpants on. I tried not to smile at his easy familiarity after less than 24 hours acquaintance, but we had been through a lot, I supposed. I set the stove going to boil some water and went to check on Chanyeol.

He was still sleeping. I peeled back the dressing on his side, but I couldn't tell if his wound was infected or not. I had no medical knowledge beyond that first aid training, but I assumed I'd be able to tell if there was a problem. I replaced the bandage, and he reached out for me, eyes half-open.

"Are you awake?" I asked him.

"Yes, a little," he said. The strength of his grip belied his words. He pulled me down towards him and I had to climb over his body just to avoid hitting his side. I ended up straddling his hips. It was not ideal. He may not care about his wellbeing, but I did. He pulled me down for a kiss. It was sloppy and sweet, and I smiled against his mouth.

"Do you want some breakfast?" I asked him and made to get up. He held me by the waist, long fingers digging into my hips. My breathing was shallow, and I silently thanked the owner of the jumpsuit that I wasn't wearing anything that could easily be taken off. It wouldn't stand a chance against my crumbling resolve.

"I'm hungry," he said, and made to kiss me again. He pulled me down, so I was sitting on him. I didn't think he was talking about food, to judge by the state he was in. I sat up, not wanting to make things worse for him or myself.

"Come on," I said, and pulled myself reluctantly from his grip. I stood up. "You'll hurt yourself, or I'll hurt you. Trust me."

He groaned and I felt that in my legs, so I left the room before I forgot myself and let him fuck me. When I got back to the kitchen, Sehun raised his eyebrows suggestively and I gritted my teeth at him. Kai had taken over coffee-making and handed me and Sehun a cup each. I heard Chanyeol leave his room and run the shower and then yelp, presumably as the cold water touched the gashes on his waist and ear.

When we were all gathered in the kitchen, I decided it was time to tell them what I knew or at least suspected.

"I think that Evelyn woman was in contact with others. Or she was sent to Central London to find immunes and gather anyone from the universities who could be saved. I guess they're the smartest people so they're a priority. Anyway, Jeremy did genetics research so I think his department was targeted because they need people who can help build a vaccine." I said all of this really quickly, and they were still blinking at me. I don't think they got my point.

"I think London has been quarantined," I said. "I think the outbreak is either only in London or it's being managed outside the city. I don't see how the whole country could have broken down in the – what, hour? However long it took to kill the city. Basically, I think we should get a car and drive out of the city to see. Okay?"

They nodded slowly, then conferred amongst themselves in rapid-fire Korean.

"Where do we go?" Kai asked. I had thought about this.

"We're in the north of the city, so I think if we just drive that direction, we should hit the big roads out of London soon enough." It was the best I could think of: get to the Caledonian Road and keep driving. "I'm betting that if there is a quarantine, we'll hit a hard-border somewhere. If there isn't, then we'll be in the countryside. I don't think that's a bad thing. You and Chanyeol will be safer." Kai nodded and I think he understood where I was going with this.

"Sehun, get dressed," I said. He looked up from the bag of Doritos he was rooting around in.

"Hm? Why?"

"You and I need to go look for a car. Someone here must have a car we can take, so we need to look around the apartments."

"We have a car," he said.

I shook my head. "The taxi we stole barely had enough petrol to get us here. So, we need to find another car."

Sehun shrugged and wandered off in search of some clothes. I turned to the other two, Kai sitting on the work surface and Chanyeol pouring more water into a pot for coffee.

"Stay here," I said. "Sehun's immune, so we'll both be safe, but you two should stay and lock the door. Throw whatever you want to take with you into a bag, but don't overpack. We won't be coming back here, but we can always pick up whatever we need if necessary. When we get the car, I'll pull round out front and beep the horn, so leave the window open. Okay? You understand?" Kai nodded. Chanyeol just swore at the burner that wouldn't light for him. Kai hopped down off the work surface and fetched painkillers from upstairs, getting Chanyeol some water to take them with. Over a decade together had clearly attuned them to how the others were feeling. It was hard not to love how attentive they were to each other, even as they dragged each other constantly. It was what I had always assumed close family was like, since I had nothing to compare to it.

Sehun came back to the kitchen in a long wool coat and a white dress-shirt, still in the sweatpants he'd thrown on when he got up. The outfit was ridiculous, but it worked, in the way that any outfit looks deliberate on a good-enough model. His black hair was swept back into a coif. He looked incredible and incongruous. I tried not to roll my eyes.

Kai and Chanyeol walked us upstairs to the door. Sehun was talking animatedly to Kai as he put his shoes on. I didn't catch any of it, because it was in fast Korean and Kai was laughing loudly over most of it.

"What?" Sehun was saying. "What?!" He was starting to laugh too, even though he didn't know what he was laughing at. I looked to Chanyeol but he was just glaring at Sehun.

"What's going on?" I asked. Sehun walked over to stand next to me, facing the other two. He put his long arm around my shoulder.

"Noona, you're being very obvious, that's all," he said. I fought the urge to face-palm. There was no way this was good.

"Sehunnie thinks you've asked him to come with you because he's your favourite member," said Kai, who draped his arm over my other shoulder. We were all facing Chanyeol now, whose face was like thunder.

"Kim Jongin. Do you want to die?" Chanyeol growled in Korean. Kai stumbled away from me, giggling again.

"She asked me," said Sehun with no hint of humility, not reading the room.

"You're immune," I said, elbowing him in the ribs. "I asked you to come with me because you're immune."

Sehun turned to face me, his expression open and seemingly offended. I think he was serious.

"I'm not your favourite?" he asked. I shut my eyes. What was wrong with these men? I turned and opened the door, stepping out into the hall.

"Who is it? Is it hyung?" he called after me, clearly ignoring my frustration.

"I'm her favourite," I heard Kai say gleefully behind me.

"Do you want to die?" Chanyeol threatening him again.

A sulking Sehun followed me out a few minutes later and sullenly trudged off down the corridor.


	23. Day 9, leaving London

We found a Range Rover in the carpark under the train station. Sehun and I picked up six sets of keys from the apartments in the building and didn't run into anyone else. Anyone living, that was. There were infected corpses in a few of the downstairs corridors, and one in an apartment, the door half-shut. I had a vague idea of where the car park for the apartments might be because of some signs on the wall beside the hotel, and I kept pressing the 'open' button on the key fobs until a car of reasonable size opened. Sehun was disappointed by this, adding to his dark mood. It wasn't the car he wanted. He had found keys to two different and very expensive sports cars that I told him to leave behind because they wouldn't fit more than two people, let alone four of us. And the members of EXO I was holed up with weren't the average-sized ones either. We climbed into the Range Rover, and there was mercifully nearly a full tank of petrol.

Before I turned on the ignition, I decided to do some damage control with Sehun. I turned to him in the passenger seat. His eyes were closed.

"Oh Sehun," I said.

"Tired," he responded, curtly. I rolled my eyes.

"Sehun-ssi," I said, as sweetly as I could manage. "I couldn't tell the truth in front of Chanyeol. Okay?" Sehun opened his eyes and glanced at me sideways. I had his attention.

"What truth."

"You're my favourite. Okay? But you can't tell Chanyeol because he's sensitive. And you can't tell Kai because he thinks it's him." I didn't honestly believe this would work. I was just chancing my arm by appealing to his vanity. He eyed me for a few seconds, though, then nodded in understanding.

"Hyung will be mad," he said. "And Jongin-ah thinks he's beautiful. Okay. Secret," he said, putting out his pinky for me to shake. I goggled at him – surely, he wasn't that easy to convince? I almost laughed and shook his pinky finger with mine. He grinned at me conspiratorially, and for a second I considered that if he smiled at me a few more times I wouldn't be lying. Sehun was a disturbingly handsome man. His eyes shut again, and I took that as my cue to stop staring at him and started the car.

We only had to wait a few minutes for Chanyeol and Kai to come downstairs. Chanyeol was wincing slightly as he walked, and when he climbed into the back of the car, I turned back to check on him.

"Did you take anything else?" I asked him. He shook his head. He looked in pain. The bandage around his head had been freshly wrapped.

"I did that," said Kai, seeing me looking at it. "His ear is hot. Maybe infected. I don't know."

"Did you bring the medicine?" I asked, and he nodded, opening the hold-all he had with him to show me the boxes from the pharmacy inside.

"Take these," I said to Chanyeol, handing him a box of antibiotics. Take two now and two more in a few hours. Okay?"

He did as he was told. Then Kai handed him some more painkillers. As I started the car again, I began to desperately let myself hope that I was right about London being in quarantine. Chanyeol could do with seeing a doctor.

We were leaving the city center none too soon. Even through the car windows I could smell the rot. It was worrying to me how easy it became to not-see the death around me as I had moved through the city over the past few days. It had been nine days – nine days – since the outbreak, and London was a city of the dead. The roving packs of Infected were still about, ambling around open spaces like the square in front of Kings Cross and out in front of us as I turned the car north. I kept my speed at a minimum, not because I was worried any more about hurting anyone, but in case I had to swerve to avoid anything left in the road. A motorbike, for instance, like the one turned on its side near the canal, its rider splayed out next to it. I didn't stop, just carefully avoided it, and kept going. There was a bus rammed into a hedge in our way at one point, and I saw a single Infected inside, roaming about the inside. I didn't want to think about what it had done to survive this long. I saw that Sehun's eyes were open now too, and he – like me – was studiously unseeing the horror around us.

"I'm scared. For them," he said to me quietly, nodding behind us at the other two. In the rearview mirror, I could see Chanyeol lying across the seat, his head on Kai's shoulder. Kai's eyes were closed too but I don't think he was asleep. I reached across and took Sehun's hand.

"We're leaving," I said to him firmly. "I'm scared for them too." Sehun held my hand and wouldn't let go for a few minutes. There was camaraderie there, even though we had known each other the shortest time. Our experience of this whole ordeal was so different from theirs, from Chanyeol and Kai. Being immune made me feel invincible. The opposite was probably true for them. It was a miracle they had managed to survive this long.

It took us an hour to get as far as the M25. The closer we got to the ring road, the more convinced I became that I was right. The streets became cleaner, the corpses sparser. Around North Finchley, I started seeing the signs of a hasty evacuation, or what I assumed an evacuation would look like. Suitcases and bags, buggies and small bits of furniture lined the paths, while the roads were clear. The occasional Infected corpse lay across a threshold or along the side of the curb, but apart from that, there was no sign of the carnage of Central. A singular horror I began to note, as I drove past at a sedate pace, was the number of cars with people in them that had been just left, on the road. The evacuees will have to have passed these cars, that bus, the minivan... the corpses were unrecognizable now, windows fogged up by the putrefaction inside, and I put on a bit more speed once I started noticing them for what they were: coffins.

The first fence we came up against was at an underpass under the M25. Herras fencing was stretched across the road, enough to keep out mindless Infected but not actually locked. Whoever had set up the border had kept survivors in mind. I got out and moved the fence, replacing it before I drove off. The second fence was about a hundred meters ahead at a crossroads. There was something lack-luster about it all, though... like the fight against Infection was half-hearted this close to London. Containment was relatively easy, but no one was needed to actually enforce it. People were absent. I pulled in at a petrol station in the next town and decided it was time for a change of plan.

The petrol station was open, an Infected corpse trapped in the automatic door before the electricity ran out. I stepped gingerly over whoever they had been – they were a bloated, indistinct corpse now – and hunted around inside for a map and some dry food. When I got back outside, I dumped the food in Sehun's lap and opened the map. We were in Potters Bar, I knew, and I found that easily enough by following our route out of London with my finger.

"What are we looking for?" Kai asked, leaning forward to look at the map over my shoulder. His un-styled coif hung over his eyes and tickled my cheek. I batted him away, but he didn't move. Sehun handed him a bar of chocolate. I traced my finger between our location and our destination. We weren't a million miles out...

"We're going to an airport?" Kai asked, reaching forward, pointing. I nodded vaguely. Then turned in my seat. Kai's perfect cheekbones were an inch from my face.

"Get back," I said, nudging him in the shoulder until he sat down again.

"How are you feeling?" I asked Chanyeol, who was sitting up at least, staring out the window. He looked a bit dazed.

"It's fine," he said, shrugging. I was starting to worry about him.

"Can I see your side?" I asked. He lifted up his shirt and I could see blood seeping through the bandage.

"Does it hurt?"

"A little," he said. "My ear hurts more." He reached up as if to touch his ear but put his hand down again.

"It looks cool, hyung," said Kai encouragingly. I smiled at that. Kai was doing his best to play down the damage. Chanyeol would look a bit different with half of one of his ears missing. Kai's only recourse was to tell him it suited him, and I found his attentiveness endearing. I reached my hand back and Chanyeol took it, holding it tightly before letting it go.

"We'll be there in about an hour," I said, and turned back to face the front. I started the car.


	24. Day 9, Stansted

I was being optimistic when I said it would take us an hour. It was more like two hours and coming on for late afternoon by the time we arrived at Stansted airport. The place was a fortress. The fencing started on the motorway when we were still a couple of miles out, but like the fencing under the bridge, it wasn't secured. By the third ring of obstructions and barriers, we could see the main terminal building, and the buzz of activity around it. I felt a small thrill of apprehension. After what had happened at Lords, I was wary of survivors. The difference between these survivors and the one we had left behind was the officialdom of things at Stansted. This was military order, not the goings-on of a civilian camp under a single lunatic with a Napoleon complex. I stopped the car at the last fence which looked like it was probably part of the permanent road furniture from before the outbreak. It was a more substantial fixture than the others and manned by a bored-looking soldier with a big gun who had watched our approach without moving.

"Civilians?" the soldier asked, by way of greeting.

"Yes," I said. "There's four of us. What's going on here?" I hadn't expected there to be a military presence. An airport was secure-enough that I had a feeling that this might have been some kind of rallying point early in the outbreak. Apart from anything else, it was easy to get out of from the air. As if I cue, I heard a jet engine roar in the distance.

"Civilian camp's in the main terminal," said the soldier. "I can let you through here, but you'll need to leave the car in the carpark. Someone up at the terminal will direct you. You'll all need to register, and they'll give you a quick sickness check before they let you in." He looked past me, into the car. "You all British?"

"I am," I said. "They're Korean."

The soldier nodded. "I think there's someone from their embassy inside."

This gave me hope, for the first time in days. There was no talk of immunes or separation or anything. As the soldier eased the gate open, though, I saw another car approach in the rearview mirror. As it drew closer, I saw Jeremy at the wheel and my stomach dropped to the floor. I sped off towards the terminal as soon as the road was clear and didn't mention it to the others.

Another soldier directed us to a car park near the terminal. There were about two dozen cars there, some piled with belongings, but most were sleek black, officious looking vehicles with registrations that had a lot of ones in them. We were directed to stay in the car until a woman in a haz-mat suit appeared and asked us all to stick our forearms out so she could extract a blood sample.

"One of the men in the back is injured," I said to her, as she took my sample. "Is there a doctor he can see?"

"When the results come back, you can go inside," she said, not answering my question. She left us without any indication of how long we would need to wait. Chanyeol had fallen asleep again but it was clear that he was in more pain now than he had been this morning. He was sprawled across the seats with his head on Kai's shoulder, his long legs uncomfortably folded into the footwell. He can't have been comfortable, but I supposed that catching sleep in unsuitable places was something he had been doing all of his adult life. In fact, none of them seemed bothered by having to sit and wait. Kai was staring out the window into the middle distance, focusing on nothing, while Sehun fidgeted. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that he was dancing along to some tune in his head.

"Check the glove box for CDs," I told him. "There might be some actual music we can play."

Sehun's eyes lit up at this and I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. I felt terrible. Here we were, with the first working radio any of us had found in a week... I nearly smacked my forehead. Something else occurred to me then. I leaned across him to get into the glove box. There were no CDs, but there was a USB-C cable. I couldn't believe that I hadn't thought of this before. I pulled out the cable and connected one end to the radio. Even if I had my iPhone, it wouldn't have worked, so I turned to the others.

"Do you have your phone?" I asked Sehun, but he just shook his head. "Kai? Is your phone an Android?"

"I don't have it," said Kai. "Wait..." I looked back to find him rifling through Chanyeol's pockets. Chanyeol frowned and made a noise but he didn't open his eyes. Kai pulled Chanyeol's expensive-looking phone from the inside pocket of his black coat and handed it to me. I turned on the car engine and connected the phone. It took a few agonizing seconds but finally – finally – the phone turned itself on.

"We need his passcode," I said, when the lock-screen came up. Sehun took the phone from me and keyed in a six-digit code.

"How do you know it?" I asked. Sehun shrugged.

"Hyung tells me all of his passwords. He isn't careful." He said this with a smirk that told me that Sehun had abused that lack of discretion at least once, but I didn't enquire. I was too happy that he knew it so I could open the phone. I opened the music apps on Chanyeol's phone to find... himself. All of the locally available playlists, all of his music, was stuff he had recorded or been involved in. I rolled my eyes.

"It's a good thing I'm a fan," I muttered. Sehun took the phone from me and scrolled through it, tutting in affectionate disgust.

"I don't like any of this music," he said, handing the phone back.

"You're in a lot of this music," I pointed out, and he just shrugged. I didn't think he was joking.

I put on The War, and as soon as the first lines of 'The Eve' came on, Sehun started dancing in his seat. In the rearview mirror, I saw Kai imitate his actions, careful not to jostle Chanyeol too much. There was a small, sad smile on his face and I felt a lump in my throat watching him so I looked away. Sehun was just happy to dance; Kai knew that the world probably looked very different now. Would they ever get to perform again?

We were on 'Forever' by the time someone came to tell us we could get out of the car. I got out first, motioning for the others to stay put. I wanted to be sure that we were safe. I hadn't seen the car that Jeremy had come in, and I had been looking around since we parked.

"What happens if we go in there?" I asked the woman, who had removed her haz-mat helmet. She was middle-aged and robust looking and introduced herself as Dr Smith. She seemed stressed, and I wondered who she was before all of this.

"There's not a lot of civilians here, we're just running a refugee camp for anyone who wants to stay right now. Most of the refugees around here went to the bigger camps at Hatfield so it's not a lot of people. Did you say one of you is carrying an injury? If you go inside, I can follow you in and take a look once we've got you set up with some sleeping space."

I nodded, grateful that she had remembered. I was worried about Chanyeol. First, though, I had to know what scale of crisis we were facing. I asked the question I had been dreading asking since we got here.

"Is this... how widespread is this outbreak? What's happening outside?"

Dr Smith shook her head, and I knew it wasn't good news.

"The major cities have been evacuated. There's an army camp like this one every twenty miles or so, in major bases or focus points like the airport here. As far as we know..." she trailed off and looked past me, to the guys in the car. "Are they British?"

"No."

"Well, they might want to find out what's happening in their home countries. Half of Westminster and Belgravia is here, so their embassy might have made it. The outbreak is global, but some places are worse affected than others."

"How do you know all this?" I asked. Had they been in touch with people outside Britain?

"Radio and military channels are still open," she said. We're running communications off generators here. That's all I know. I'm was just the GP last week, so I happened to be here." She motioned back towards the airport. Well, that answered the question of who she'd been before the outbreak. "Your tests came back clean, but two of you are marked as immune. You know that?"

I glanced back at Sehun. Would they separate us from the others if we told them who the immunes were?

It seemed like she understood what I was thinking. "I know it was samples 1 and 4, so you two in the front seat. You and him." She gestured towards Sehun. I felt a spike of panic.

"What's going to happen?" I asked. Dr Smith made to answer, but we were interrupted suddenly by a shout from the direction of the terminal.

We swung around to see Evelyn and Jeremy approaching us, dragging the soldier from the gate and a harried-looking soldier with what looked like an army officer.

"I want them arrested for obstruction!" Evelyn was saying to the officer, loudly enough so it carried across to us at the car. Dr Smith rolled her eyes as she turned back to me.

"What the fuck have you done to piss off the scientists?"


	25. Day 9, Departures

I heard the others pile out of the car. Chanyeol appeared next to me and put his arm around my shoulder. I glanced up at him and saw that is ear was bleeding through the bandage Kai had put on this morning. He was glaring venomously at Evelyn and Jeremy as they approached. Kai stood next to Chanyeol, and Sehun appeared on my other side. He took my hand and held it. I felt a curious solidarity with Sehun as another Immune. Dr Smith stepped back as Evelyn and the soldier approached.

"Please," I said loudly when she was still a few steps away. "Please, just fuck off." I was done with this idiot and whoever she thought she was.

"They disrupted our rally point in the city and absconded with two of our immunes," Evelyn said to the soldier, ignoring me. He looked bored.

"Which ones are the immunes?" he asked. I felt a little thrill of terror before my anger fought it back.

"This fool was running a prison camp," I said, addressing Dr Smith. "She locked up my friend and infected the man he came in with."

Evelyn at least had the good grace to bite back whatever she was going to say next.

"This isn't a prison camp," said the officer, and he turned to me. "I'm Sergeant Hawkins, have you been cleared for entry?"

"They're clear," said Dr Smith. "One of them is carrying an injury, so I'll take them up to the terminal." I couldn't let this one go, though.

"Are you with this lunatic?" I asked, gesturing towards Evelyn. "Because she shot at us last night. My friend had half his ear blown off, and another bullet grazed his side." Chanyeol shuffled his feet. Sergeant Hawkins was frowning.

"You shot at civilians?" he asked Evelyn.

"They burned down the building we were in," Evelyn said. She was trying to sound indignant, but it was clear that she knew she was in the wrong here.

I looped my arm around Chanyeol's waist.

"Let's go," I said. Dr Smith led us past where Sergeant Hawkins was still glaring at Evelyn. Jeremy stepped out from behind them and seemed to be about to say something to me, but I stalked past. Fuck him, I thought.

Dr Smith led us up to the main departures area, where a refugee camp had been set up. I wondered aloud why they hadn't set up in one of the hotels nearby and was hastily reminded that the hotels were open during the outbreak while the terminal – like the Tube – had been shut as a precaution. I felt queasy hearing this. Those buildings would probably be safer to burn than trying to clear of them corpses, if they were ever needed again. We were processed by a bored-looking young woman at one of the check-in desks and directed to another desk to collect sleeping bags and bedrolls. It was already getting dark outside and I was looking forward to not standing up for a couple of hours.

An exclamation from a little gang of refugees as we made our way towards a dark Costa Coffee with some floor space made us pause. Suddenly we were surrounded by people speaking Korean and I recognized Chanyeol's manger, who had disappeared on that second day – Jisoo. At first, the members were too shocked to speak, then they were embracing their lost manager, and she was crying like it was all too much for her. I found myself on the outside of their circle with a man in shirtsleeves who Jisoo quickly introduced to Chanyeol as someone from the Korean embassy. The conversation picked up speed and they lost me. I could only watch as his manager inspected Chanyeol, horrorstruck at his wounds. Dr Smith cleared her throat.

"I'll have a look at your wounds now," she shouted over them. Jisoo regarded her and me with suspicion. If she recognized me, it didn't show.

"Chanyeol, you should go with her," I said, but he wasn't listening to me. He was still talking to Jisoo, recounting where he had gone and where he found the others. Kai eventually stepped in and dragged him out by the arm, pushing him towards Dr Smith. Jisoo went with him and I watched with a kind of sad detachment as they followed her. There it was again, that feeling of distance opening up between us. I had to remind myself that no matter what had happened in the last ten days, he was still who he was, and I was nobody. I knew it was stupid to feel as... left... as I did. I realized with horror that my eyes were pricking, and I walked off before anyone could see that I was about to cry.

I was exhausted. I was emotionally wrought and tired of everything. I had spent ten days keeping him alive, and he had walked off at the first sight of another caretaker. It was ridiculous of me to cry over a man I barely knew, who had been nothing but a photocard in an album to me, a voice in a song, before last week. But here I was. The darkness of the closed Costa was a blessing, and I set about unravelling my sleeping bag. I had to stop to take a deep breath, and I heard someone behind me. For a second I thought maybe Chanyeol had come back, but the big arms that encircled me weren't his. Kai turned me so I cried into his shirt, tracing small circles on the back of my head with his thumb as he held me and making soothing noises. We were standing there like that when the first screams sounded from the other end of the terminal.

We sprang apart and were both sprinting towards Sehun, still surrounded by the embassy staff and looking confused, in seconds. I still had my baseball bat tucked into the straps of my backpack and took it out when I reached him.

"What's happening?" I demanded, looking around. The embassy staff scattered. I saw Jeremy first, running towards me at top speed from one of the nearby doors to the outside. Without thinking, I put myself between him and Kai and held my bat out. I could see it from a distance – his panic. He collapsed before he even reached us. A low groan, and then he vomited across the floor. Infected. With a sense of detachment, I watched my oldest friend die and felt... nothing. I was numb. I was halfway to Jeremy's body by the time I even realized I was moving. I couldn't even process what I was seeing, and Sehun had to pull me away.

"Move," Sehun said to me, dragging me and Kai with him up a paused escalator and onto a walkway that overlooked the floor below. The body that had been Jeremy was behind a pillar so I couldn't see him, but I could see the rest of the concourse. Tracing a line back towards the direction Jeremy had run from, I saw Evelyn. She was near where we had been, by the door. She was standing in a circle...no, she was the only one standing amid a mass of unconscious Infected, clutching something. Blood stained her hands. Blood. Infected blood, I realized. She was close enough that I could see what she was holding: a glass phial. It looked identical to the blood-sample phials Dr Smith had deposited our samples into earlier. The look on Evelyn's face told me that she hadn't meant to break it, that she hadn't even yet processed that what was happening around her was her fault. She didn't have any time to process it either, because at that second Sergeant Hawkins ran in with four soldiers and unleashed a spray of bullets into her and the bodies around her, containing the outbreak in the most brutal and efficient way possible. My legs went weak and I fell backwards. Kai caught me before I hit the floor.


	26. Day 9, Stansted, still

Summer bled into Autumn, so I barely noticed the change until more people arrived on campus. Our school let us stay all summer, and my mother didn't want me at home anyway. I didn't notice how cold it was out on the lawn until I felt actual dew on my shirt and the wind chilled me to the bone. One of my classmates (that's who I assumed he was at the time; in actual fact he hadn't started yet and was there on a visit) came over and sat down beside me on the grass. He asked me questions about what I was studying (French, I think) and who I had for that class, and at some point in the conversation, he took off his jacket and handed it to me. It was like we had always been friends. When he stood up to leave, I shrugged off his jacket and handed it up to him. He told me to hold on to it and give it back in French class. We were on half-term, so he said I'd see him the following week. I was getting cold. It was the only reason I kept the jacket, I told myself. Not because I was charmed by him or appreciated his solicitude. Not because I was desperately lonely because my school was a rotating door of international boarders who rarely stayed long. His name was Jeremy, he told me. I woke up with the memory of our first meeting like I'd been dreaming about it. Maybe I had been.

"Is she awake yet?" The voice was Dr Smith, but I didn't open my eyes. I remembered that she had given me something after I collapsed. After... no, I couldn't think about that yet. I was back in the Costa, where I'd left my bag. Someone had bundled me into a sleeping bag and put a pillow under my head. I felt warm and cared for, and it was enough to make me tear up. I sniffed and my pillow moved, and I realized I wasn't lying on a pillow but a knee. My eyes flared open and I found myself looking straight up into Sehun's impassive face. His eyes were closed. He was curled over me, his arm over the back of the seat and his forehead resting on his bicep. I made to get up, but my hands were tucked into the sleeping bag, and I lost my balance, rolling gracelessly to the floor. I barely missed smacking my head against a table.

"Fuck," I muttered, scrambling to get out of the sleeping bag and not hit my head on the way back up. Sehun hadn't even moved but he had opened his eyes.

"You're awake," he said, deadpan. I grimaced at him as I climbed to my feet. Then I remembered that we had an audience and spun. Kai was smiling at me genially, but there was a tiredness to his good humor, and I saw worry lines around his eyes. Dr Smith was next to him, regarding me with the clinical eye of a medical professional in a hurry.

"Where's Chanyeol?" I asked. It was the first thing I noticed when I woke up, that he wasn't there. I felt rising terror; where had he been during that momentary outbreak? Was he safe? I made to rush past the doctor, out to the concourse where I had last seen him, but Kai took my hand and gently steered me back around to face them.

"It's fine," he said. "Hyung's getting food." He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. Dr Smith cleared her throat.

"I just came over to tell you to eat something. You were dehydrated and malnourished when you came in, it's probably why you fainted. Go get food and drink plenty of water, and here's something to take when you're done to knock you out again. You need to sleep." She handed me a little foil package of pills with a handwritten note scrawled on a post-it attached: Two at a time with water, no more than four in 24 hours. I thanked Dr Smith and she walked away, leaving me with Sehun who had taken my sleeping bag from the floor and was now lying on it, and Kai who still hadn't let go of my hand. I was beginning to really appreciate the solidity of his presence, how he was always there when I needed support. Of all the bizarre things to emerge from this situation, forming a solid friendship with EXO's Kai was high on the list.

"Jongin," I said, using his real name for the first time. "What happened?" He smiled when I said his name but when I finished my question, he looked for a second like he wasn't going to answer. Maybe he was worried I would faint again. He led me over to a table and sat me down.

"Your friend is dead," he said baldly. I knew that but hearing it out loud was strange. It sounded wrong. I brushed it aside to deal with later, I couldn't think about Jeremy right now. The last few days of our soured friendship were threatening to break me if I gave it the thought it required.

"What happened with the outbreak? Was it deliberate?" Even as I said this, I knew it wasn't true. Evelyn's face had been too shocked for her to have stormed the terminal with a phial of infected blood on purpose. Kai didn't seem to know, though, so I didn't press him. I could see Sergeant Hawkins nearby talking to Dr Smith. I was about to get up to approach him when I saw Chanyeol, striding towards us with four stacked trays of food. Jisoo followed behind him.

Chanyeol deposited the trays on a table inside the door and walked directly to where I was sitting, crouched down, and put his arms around me. I shut my eyes and buried my face in his neck. His hair had grown in the time we had been together and the feathered ends of it ticked my nose. He smelled like sweat and disinfectant from the bandage around his head, and himself. After everything that had happened since the outbreak, he was the closest thing to home for me. I felt the panic and the worry of the last couple of hours dissipate and I momentarily forgot about Jeremy and the outbreak in the terminal.

"Are you okay? You were asleep when the doctor let me go," he said, sitting back and inspecting my face with his giant, dark eyes. He ran his hands up and down my arms, like he was checking me for damage. I reached out and lightly touched the bandage around his head.

"Is your ear okay? Your stomach?"

"I'm fine. She gave me a lot of drugs for pain," he said, smiling and leaning into my hand. It was ridiculous – we had been separated for hours at best, but he was acting like he hadn't seen me in days. He was back with me, fully present. I was going to have to get over this feeling I had every time he walked away from me, that I was losing him. Nothing in his manner now suggested that he had any intention of going far. I looked over his shoulder and saw his manager talking quietly with Kai. She cast her glance around the room, checking each of the members in turn, over and over, like a mother hen.

"Where was she? Where did she go, at the start?" I asked Chanyeol quietly, nodding towards Jisoo.

"Jisoo-noona went to get help," he said. "She got lost and couldn't find us, so she went to the embassy of Korea and came here with them."

"Why didn't she come to St Pancras?"

Chanyeol just shrugged, and I supposed that I was being unfair on Jisoo. She had probably been stuck in the embassy and didn't know where to go or how to get there. She approached and I stood up.

"Hi," I said, holding out my hand. Jisoo shook it hesitantly. "We met back at the show, when the outbreak started?" She frowned and then realization dawned.

"You! You stayed with him?" She looked stunned. When I nodded, she stepped in close and embraced me. I patted her lightly on the back. The moment stretched on and then she finally let go, beaming at me. I didn't know what to say so I didn't say anything and just let her lead me over to the big table where Chanyeol had deposited the food. Jisoo pushed a bottle of Coke into my hand and I drank it gratefully, looking out across the terminal while the others unpacked the food behind me.

It only occurred to me then that it was dark outside. And yet, I could see everything in the terminal. The lights were on. There was electricity. I was so taken aback by this that I forgot what Dr Smith had said in the carpark, that they had generators. I walked out into the center of the concourse and looked around. Not all of the terminal was lit, only the central areas towards the front. The shops were still dark. Little groups of refugees huddled around makeshift camps in the shops and around the check-in desks. I saw the army contingent again, over by the door, and walked over when I saw that Sergeant Hawkins was among them. I tried to ignore the marks on the floor where Infected bullets had burst through bodies to scuff the tile. Someone had moved the bodies, thankfully.

"Sergeant, can I have a word?" I asked, when he noticed me. He nodded curtly and stepped away from his soldiers. He looked imposing, still holding his machine gun and looking around with a haunted gaze. I wondered if he had ever killed anyone before the outbreak. I recognized that look from the few times I'd looked in the mirror recently.

"What happened?" I asked. "I knew one of the... Infected. He was with Evelyn at Lords, what were they doing here?"

"Someone tripped on the way in the door and Dr Byrne had a blood sample in her hand and not in a case for some reason. It's... a real shame but there was no saving anyone who got hit with the blood." He looked shook, so I didn't bother pointing out to him that Evelyn was immune. She had survived the spatter. She hadn't needed to be killed. Someone would probably point it out to him eventually, or maybe he even knew – deep down. I knew I should feel worse about her death, that no one deserved to die like that. After what she had done to Sungjin, how she had terrorized Sehun and wanted to have me locked up, and shot at us indiscriminately... well, I couldn't feel sad that she was dead. Any regret and sympathy I had to spare right now was locked behind the door I had shut in my brain against Jeremy.

"What was she doing here?" I asked.

"Dr Byrne- er, Evelyn Byrne that is- came up from the city to give a report to the bosses. She... she was coming up every couple of days. She usually brought a few of her science people with her." I was shocked by this. Granted I had only actually been at Lords for less than a day, but Jeremy hadn't even hinted at the camp at Stansted. Something he said snagged.

"Who are the bosses? What is this place? No one has even told me."

"We're local Forces, but the main camp is the diplomats. There's a few WHO people here who are coordinating the immunity searches. Dr Byrne was part of that."

The WHO? Why did the World Health Organization send representatives to a random airport in the UK?

"Were they based in London?" I asked. "Did they know what Evelyn was doing? That she was running a prison camp for Immunes at Lords?"

Sergeant Hawkins shook his head. He looked just as disturbed by what Evelyn had been involved with as I had felt, so I thanked him and turned to go.

"If you're immune, you'll want to go and have a chat with them in the morning. The WHO people. They're in one of the security offices over there." He pointed behind me, towards the back of the building. It was dark over there now, so I didn't think I'd bother going tonight.

When I got back to the Costa, Chanyeol ushered me over and sat me down next to him, piling food onto my plate.


	27. Day 10, Leaving

"You want me to go with him?" I nearly did a spit-take of the water I had deigned to drink, a sad attempt to look relaxed in what airport security probably used as an actual interrogation room. Three officials of the WHO sat opposite me with someone I thought might be a spook. Tiredness radiated from them, but they seemed no less intimidating. None of this seemed to phase Sehun who was lounging next to me, his long legs splayed out under the table in front of him.

"Yes, we want you to go with him," said the woman to my left who introduced herself as Faye but that may not be her name because she had yawned halfway through it. She was with the British government, not the WHO, but she was working with them. "Our embassy out there could do with a few more of our own who can speak the language, and you seem to be aware of who he is." She gestured towards Sehun, who was ignoring everything and inspecting the ceiling.

When we turned up this morning to talk to the WHO people after an uncomfortable night on the floor of the Costa, we were tailed by one of the Korean embassy staff who insisted on sitting in on our meeting. I was glad he did because he was there now, translating everything for Sehun, for which I was immensely grateful. He had also explained to them in a fit of understatement that Sehun was something of a celebrity in Korea, apparently trying and succeeding to convince them to repatriate him. I, apparently, was going to be part of this deal. It was news to me.

"Let the others go," I said, not for the first time. The WHO people and Faye shook their heads sadly. No one who wasn't immune was allowed to travel.

"If you don't want to go, then grand. He'll still go, though, yeah?" said the heavy-set man with an Irish accent who had been fairly quiet until now.

The man from the Korean embassy said 'yes' at the same time that Sehun said 'no.' Everyone turned to look at him. I knew his English comprehension was better than he let on, but he hadn't said a word since coming in.

"I won't go alone," Sehun said firmly. And that was that.

We left the office together, Sehun sticking close to me and politely answering the Korean embassy official when he talked to him but otherwise not saying much. The embassy official left us, beaming as he made his way back to their camp. The meeting had been a success as far as he was concerned. We were halfway across the concourse when Faye caught up.

"Sorry, I meant to mention it in there, but we got a bit sidetracked. When the embassy told us you'd arrived, we recognized the names of the men you came in with. Our embassy radioed over a few days ago to say that there were three Korean singers missing here, and we took a message. We've been getting a lot of these from embassies all over, but this one came straight from the central office, so we assumed they must be important." She passed me a handwritten note. It was written in English:

_Notice that three Koreans are missing in United Kingdom: Park Chanyeol, Kim Jong-in, Oh Sehun. Please radio Embassy of the UK if they make contact. Contact: Kim Jun-myeon, clerical assistant, Korean diplomatic service._

"When did this come in?" I asked, my hands starting to shake.

"Three days ago," said Faye, and smiled encouragingly before walking off.

I spun around and pushed the note into Sehun's hands. "Suho is alive!"

I could barely follow Sehun's rapid-fire Korean as he relayed to Kai and Chanyeol back at the Costa that Suho had made contact through the UK embassy in Seoul. There was nothing to even tell them – that was all we knew – but somehow Sehun spun out the story. He made me read the note and read it again in Korean and then again in English. His excitement and relief were infectious, and I couldn't help but smile with him. Kai and Chanyeol drew him into a three-person hug, calming him down a bit, but when they drew apart, Chanyeol and Kai looked somber. I gathered from their expressions that somewhere in Sehun's explanation he had told them about what was going to happen next.

"You're going?" Chanyeol asked.

"I don't know..." I said, biting my lip. Sehun was bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. Discovering that his friend was alive had given him new energy. He had been so lethargic, so drawn, since I met him that this new buzz about him was jarring. I wanted to hold him still. Why did I have to go? He was an adult after all.

"Can you go alone?" I asked Sehun, but I knew the answer. Yes, he could, but no he didn't want to. Yes, he could... but should he? The last time he was left alone had traumatized him. He was sensitive anyway, but this went beyond his reluctance to sleep alone. What Evelyn had done to Sungjin in front of him had hurt Sehun deeply.

"We can't go?" Kai asked, without much hope for a positive answer.

"No," I said. "They'll only send immunes. We're not at risk, I suppose."

"Where will they send you? Straight to Korea?" Kai gestured in the vague direction of the tarmac where, everyone once and a while, we heard a jet engine fire up or a helicopter land. There were a lot of comings and goings from this place, but I supposed that we only saw a tiny part of what was happening here.

"They'll send us to Felixstowe first. It's a port, I think. They said there's some sort of jet-fuel issue so it's easier to send people by boat." I knew what that sounded like. It sounded like this was a one-way trip, and the more I thought about it the more hopeless I felt. I had already lost my best friend this week. Now I was losing any firm footing on the only physical ground I had ever stood on. I had planned that Korea trip for my 30th birthday. It was looking more and more likely that it would come true, in the most bizarre of circumstances.

"You sail to Korea?" asked Chanyeol. He looked to Sehun. "You'll like that. You like boats." Sehun nodded but he was casting anxious glances at me. Discovering that Suho was alive had changed everything. Sehun clearly didn't see this as the full-stop that I did.

"They said the first ship would take us to Cyprus, there's some British base there or something, and then Korea, maybe to China first. They weren't clear, but I think we would be looked after. If we go. If I go..." I trailed off. I couldn't look at any of them. Kai put his arm around Sehun like he knew what I was thinking. What if this was it? What if we said yes and we didn't see them again?

"I want to go," said Sehun suddenly. "I want to make sure Junmyeonie-hyung is really alive. Maybe the others. Maybe many others." He didn't say it because he didn't have to; what if their families were still alive in Korea? I didn't have a family, not really. But I remembered how keenly I had worried about Jeremy in those first days. Jeremy. I looked up at the ceiling to avoid accidentally glancing at that patch of ground where he had died. I took a deep breath, and when I looked down again, I found myself the focus of attention. Chanyeol looked so sad, but resigned... Kai already had tears in his eyes but he didn't have to say it for me to know that he already assumed I was going.

"Will you go with Sehunnie?" Chanyeol asked in a quiet voice.

Would I? Did I have a choice? What was my alternative? I could stay here, but why? There was nothing for me to do, and Chanyeol and Kai were safe with the army and the embassy staff. If Sehun went by himself, and I was starting to think that he probably would, he would be alone, all because I didn't have the courage to go with him. If something happened to him... Chanyeol wasn't asking me if I was going, he was asking me if I would go. So Sehun wouldn't be alone.

"Will you go?" Chanyeol asked again. I glanced at Kai, and Sehun, and back to Chanyeol. And even though I didn't want to, I nodded. It felt so final. The truth was that what seemed to be planned was so shaky, so uncertain, that I thought that if I left England now, I would never get back. This must have been what it felt like to be shipped off to far-flung colonies in the old days, to wonder if you would ever see home again. And even though I knew it had only been days – just over a week – since we met... home was starting to feel less like a place and more like a person. I reached for Chanyeol and he stepped over silently. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he held me to him, kissing my temple softly.

"I don't want to go," I whispered. Kai and Sehun had walked away towards the mess area. What privacy we could have in the darkened Costa in the middle of this airport terminal, they were giving it to us. Chanyeol tightened his hold on me, dropping his head onto my shoulder. His hair was so soft under my hands and I tried to memorize the details of it. How it was a little course at the tips, the whisps at the back of his neck that curled. He was kissing my neck then, grazing the space under my ear with his teeth, and I forgot everything else for a couple of seconds. We were in relative shadow here towards the back of the café, but it wasn't complete darkness. Reluctantly, I drew back from him.

"We didn't have any time together," he said huskily, and I knew what he meant. I glanced around and saw a door near the counter, leading into a bathroom. I nodded towards it and he shuffled me backwards, not letting go of my waist. His hoodie was off before we even shut the door.


	28. Day 30, near Paphos

We had been docked near Paphos for five days waiting for another ship to take us as far as Hong Kong. They wouldn't let us off the ship – too risky, our escorts said – but I didn't mind at all. The smoke from fires in the mountains that hadn't burned themselves out was a constant presence, and at least out at sea we had a breeze. Even in mid-October, the heat in the middle of the day was oppressive for me, but Sehun didn't seem to mind.

We weren't the only civilians on the military survey ship, but Sehun made us more conspicuous. Since entering the Mediterranean, he'd taken to lying out on deck, his skin turning a beautiful honey-gold, and chatting amiably in whatever language he could muster to whoever was passing. A doctor from Norfolk who had taken her leave of the ship at Paphos had been especially smitten by him and had sat for hours with us watching the horizon and Sehun with equal interest.

Apart from Sehun I didn't really talk to anyone else. It had taken me days to come to terms with being on the ship. I'd never been on so much as a ferry before, so just finding my balance had been challenging at first. At least I was better off than the girl from China who occupied the cabin next to ours and had spent the two weeks it took us to get here throwing up. She was out on deck now, wrapped in a padded jacket in spite of the heat, intently gazing at the shore.

A low buzzing noise made me look up from where I was leaning against the railing, reading a book. A small helicopter was approaching the ship from the east. These weren't uncommon, but after nearly a week anchored out here, I was starting to get anxious to be underway again. I had even accosted the ship's navigator to find out how long it would take us to get to Hong Kong and then on to Korea at this rate, and he had just shrugged and muttered 'two months maybe,' before walking off. Then, yesterday afternoon, another ship that looked like ours had appeared on the horizon and the captain was making encouraging noises about it. This helicopter had come from where that ship was. I nudged Sehun's prone form with my toe.

"That might be for us," I said, pointing at the helicopter.

I was right. Within an hour of the helicopter landing, Sehun and I, along with the Chinese girl, were strapped into the back and taking off. The sea under us gleamed in the midday sun and I could almost pretend that we weren't doing what we were doing because of a global catastrophe and just enjoy the view from the helicopter as we made our way to the new ship.

She was identical in class and size to the one we had left behind, so when we were directed to our cabins, we had no trouble finding them. Someone must have radioed ahead to tell them that Sehun and I would share because they didn't bother trying to separate us like they had at Felixstowe. At least this cabin had two berths. Sehun was like a furnace at night, and he refused to sleep on the floor.

We were settling in when someone knocked sharply on the door.

"You're wanted on the bridge," said the naval officer on the other side, and we followed him up. A hook-nosed communications officer met us there and handed over two typed cards.

"These just came in. They were sent over from the other ship as soon as you arrived," she said. I took the cards.

"What are they?" I asked.

"SPOT messages. You won't be able to respond," she said. When she didn't elaborate, I didn't ask. The cards had short lines of text, like tweets. I turned over the first one, which was written in English.

_We are safe and very bored. There isn't anything to do. We miss you. Tell Sehunnie we love him and to clean up. See you soon. Be safe. PCY and KJI_

I grinned at the message and passed it to Sehun. He snorted when he got to the end, but I could see tears in his eyes. I gave him a reassuring pat on the arm and turned over the second card. It was in romanized Korean and had a note on the top – ROKAF. What was this?

_Hello...I will meet our Eri and Sehunnie in Hong Kong! Junmyeon-hyung says you are coming from UK... I am safe too. [sic] 8D!!!! Baek100!_


End file.
